'y^'iogst6viem»iloaaoi>i>TiKS^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

iJNiVFRSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

J-OS  ANGtLES,  CALIF. 


I 


LAST  AND  FIRST 


John  Addington  Symonds 

LAST  AND  FIRST 

BEING  TWO  ESSAYS: 
THE  NEW  SPIRIT  and 
ARTHUR    HUGH    CLOUGH 


c    •    «        o 


NICHOLAS       L.       BROWN 

NEW    YORK  MCMXIX 


5  0  0  3  0 


Copyright  1919 

BY 

Nicholas  L.  Brown 


5^ 


ii\ 


I 


V9, 

o  Ot  wv  fC/ 

U33 


INTRODUCTION 


The  two  essays  in  this  volume  represent, 
respectively,  the  first  and  the  last  most  impor- 
tant contributions  to  literary  cnticism  by  John 
Addington  Symonds.  They  are  now  published 
for  the  first  time. 

The  esSay  on  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  ap- 
peared in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  Decem- 
ber, 1868,  four  years  before  Symonds's  first 
book.  The  Study  or  Dante,  was  published, 
■4  Symonds  relates  in  his  autobiography  that  he 
^  first  heard  of  Clough  from  Professor  Jowett. 
^  The  famous  scholar  was  so  shocked  by  the  news 
of  dough's  death  that  he  could  not  hear 
Symonds*s  essay  that  evening.  Jowett  added 
— "He  (Clough)  was  the  only  man  of  genius, 
whom  I  knew  to  be  a  man  of  genius,  that  I 


have  seen  among  the  younger  set  at  Balliol." 
This  was  in  1861. 

Symonds  was  attracted  to  C lough  by  the 
poet's  scepticism  and  sympathized  with  hia 
views.  The  essay  reveals  the  liberal  side  of 
Symonds's  mind  more  clearly  than  many  of  his 
later  works  do.  In  1869  Symonds  helped  the 
poet's  widow  to  edit  and  arrange  the  prose  re- 
mains of  her  husband,  and  she  made  a  most 
grateful  acknowledgment  to  Sipnonds  in  the 
Introduction  for  his  part.  Symonds  never  re- 
printed his  essay  on  the  poet,  who  is  as  famous 
for  being  the  subject  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
great  elegy  Thyrsis,  as  for  his  oxvn  great 
poems.  For  intellectual  vigor,  and  purity  of 
style  J  and  as  a  penetrating  critical  study,  the 
essay  ranks  high. 

The  address  on  The  New  Spirit  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  March, 
1803,  a  month  before  Symonds  died.  It  repre- 
sents his  final  impression  of  the  Renaissance. 
He  shows  the  similarity  of  the  modern  spirit  in 
art  and  science  to  the  spirit  that  prevailed  in 
the  16th  century.  The  last  of  his  seven  volumes 

8 


on  the  Renaissance  had  appeared  in  1886.  The 
great  Humanist  Movement  waS  the  theme  of 
his  prize  essay  at  Oxford.  And  now  towards 
the  close  of  his  life,  he  summed  up  his  more 
mature  views  on  a  subject  which  had  occupied 
him  so  many  years.  The  essay  now  appears  in 
its  entirety. 

Symonds  was,  with  Pater  and  Arnold,  one 
of  the  great  Victorian  creative  critics.  He  was 
probably  superior  intellectually  to  Matthew 
Arnold,  more  reliable  in  his  literary  judg- 
ments and  as  a  stylist  he  was  more  charming. 
He  sufered  from  a  spirit  of  Self -depreciation; 
it  was  only  too  prevalent  throughout  his  auto- 
biography, and  people  took  him  at  his  own  esti- 
mation. Even  so  fine  a  critic  as  Arthur  Symons 
has  left  an  unworthy  and  unjust  estimate  of 
him. 

Symonds  will  live  in  English  literature. 
His  studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  of  the  Renais- 
sance, his  monographs  on  Dante,  Boccaccio, 
Whitman,  his  critical  essays  and  travels,  are 
among  the  finest  things  in  our  language.  His 
poems  also,  which  are  so  little  known,  are  of 


great  merit.  And  his  autobiography  and  let- 
ters, edited  hy  Mr.  Horatio  F,  Brown,  form 
one  of  the  most  poignant  and  ai'tistic  docu- 
ments in  any  literature. 

— Albert  Mordell. 

Philadelphia. 


10 


CONTENTS 

PAQK 

Thk  New  Spirit 15 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough 65 


THE  NEW  SPIRIT. 

(an  analysis  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
intellect   in    the    foueteenth,    fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries  ) 


THE  NEW  SPIRIT. 


It  was  my  honourable  duty  to  read  an  English 
essay  on  "The  Renaissance,"  in  the  theatre  at 
Oxford,  on  the  17th  of  June,  1863.  At  that 
time  confused  and  erroneous  views  were  com- 
mon as  to  the  meaning  of  the  term  Renais- 
sance, and  as  to  the  importance  of  the  histori- 
cal period  which  it  denotes.  Even  so  able  a 
thinker  as  G.  W.  F.  Hegel,  in  his  Philosophy 
of  History,  passed  from  the  Middle  Ages  to 
the  German  Reformation  with  three  pages  of 
transition,  in  which  he  superficially  alluded  to 
the  revival  of  learning,  the  efflorescence  of  the 
fine  arts,  and  the  discovery  of  America, 
Hegel,  apparently,  had  not  grasped  the  revo- 
lutionary character  of  humanism;  its  reaction 
against  mediaeval  methods   of  thinking;   its 

15 


preparation  of  modern  scientific  criticism. 
But  what  revealed  a  deeper  want  of  insight 
into  the  subject,  was  his  failure  to  perceive 
that  the  Reformation  owed  its  force  as  an  in- 
tellectual movement — apart  from  mere  revolt 
against  ecclesiastical  corruption — to  the  New 
Spirit  of  independence  which  had  been  lib- 
erated in  Italy  by  the  Renaissance. 

During  the  last  thirty  years  rapid  advance 
has  been  made  toward  a  true  knowledge  of  the 
Renaissance.  A  group  of  eminent  writers  in 
France,  Germany,  England,  and  Italy,  have 
devoted  their  best  energies  to  investigating  its 
origins  in  the  ^liddle  Ages,  explaining  the 
conditions  of  its  development,  and  analysing 
its  specific  character.  Yet  I  feel  that  we  are 
still  very  far  from  being  able  to  give  a  plaus- 
ible theory  of  the  causes  which  produced  this 
reawakening  of  the  human  mind,  or  to  define 
with  absolute  precision  what  was  its  vital 
essence. 

What  I  wTote  in  my  early  youth  returns 

to  my  memory  now;  and  I  do  not  seem  able, 

after  thirty  years  of  searching,  to  yield  a  bet- 

16 


ter  account  of  the  setiologj^  of  the  Renaissance 
than  I  did  then.  Then  I  introduced  my  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  with  remarks  upon  the 
abysmal  deeps  of  national  personality,  and  the 
inscrutability  of  laws  which  govern  human  de- 
velopment, adding:  ^  "These  remarks,  if  gen- 
erally true,  may  be  applied  with  special  signifi- 
cance ,to  the  age  of  the  Renaissance — that 
mighty  period  of  dissolution  and  reconstruc- 
tion, of  the  reabsorption  of  old  material,  and 
of  the  development  of  new  principles,  of  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  mutualty  strengthen- 
ing one  another,  and  tending  to  diffuse  and 
render  permanent  the  power  of  man.  If  we 
ask,  what  was  the  Renaissance?  the  lovers  of 
art  will  answer  that  it  was  the  change  pro- 
duced on  painting,  architecture,  and  sculpture, 
by  the  study  of  newly  recovered  antiques ;  nor 
will  they  agree  albout  the  value  of  this  change ; 
for  some  deplore  it  as  the  decadence  of  true 
inspiration,  others  hail  it  as  the  dawning  of  a 
brief  but  glorious  day.    The  scholar  means  by 

(1)     The    Renaissance.      Oxford,    Henry    Hammans, 
1863,  p.  8. 

17 


the  Renaissance  that  discovery  of  ancient 
manuscripts  and  that  progress  in  philology 
which  led  to  a  correct  knowledge  of  classical 
literature,  to  new  systems  of  philosophy,  to  a 
fresh  taste  in  poetry,  to  a  deeper  insight  into 
language,  and,  finally,  to  the  great  Lutheran 
schism  and  the  emancipation  of  modern 
thought.  The  jurist  understands  by  the  term 
a  dissolution  of  old  systems  of  law  based  upon 
the  False  Decretals,  the  acquisition  of  a  true 
text  of  the  Corpus  Juris,  and  generally  the 
opening  of  a  new  era  for  jurisprudence.  Ask 
the  historian  of  political  Europe  what  marked 
the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  and  he  will  talk  of 
the  abolition  of  feudalism,  of  French  interfer- 
ence in  Italian  affairs,  of  the  tendency  to  cen- 
tralisation, of  the  growth  of  great  monarchies, 
and  of  diplomacy,  which  was  the  instrument 
by  which  kings  established  their  supremacy, 
and  wrought  out  their  schemes  of  self-ag- 
grandisement. Besides,  we  hear  of  the  dis- 
covery of  America,  and  of  the  exploration  of 
the  East;  the  true  system  of  the  w^orld  is  ex- 
plained by   Copernicus;  Vesalius  teaches  us 

18 


how  man  is  made ;  printing,  engraving,  paper, 
the  compass,  gmi-powder,  all  start  suddenly 
into  being  to  aid  the  dissolution  of  what  is  rot- 
ten and  must  perish,  to  strengthen  and  per- 
petuate the  new  and  useful  and  life-giving. 
Yet,  if  we  rightly  consider  the  question,  we 
shall  find  that  neither  one  of  these  answers,  nor 
yet  indeed  all  of  them  together,  can  adequate^ 
explain  the  multiplicity  and  apparent  incon- 
gruity of  those  phenomena  which  made  the 
interval  between  1450  and  1550  the  most  mar- 
vellous period  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 
In  the  word  Renaissance,  or  palingenesis,  in 
the  idea  of  Europe  arousing  herself  from  the 
torpor  of  trance  and  incubation  which  weighed 
upon  her  for  ten  centm-ies,  we  detect  a  spiritual 
regeneration,  a  natural  crisis,  not  to  be  ex- 
plained by  this  or  that  phenomenon  of  its  de- 
velopment, but  to  be  accepted  as  a  gigantic 
movement  for  which  at  length  the  time  was 
come,  which  had  been  anticipated  by  the 
throes  of  centuries,  which  was  aided  and  ex- 
tended by  external  incidents,  and  which  still 
continues  to  live  and  move  and  expand  within 

19 


us,  by  virtue  of  its  own  power,  and  of  the  mar- 
vellous mechanical  inventions  that  preserve  to 
us  inviolably  each  on^vard  step  in  its  progress 
towards  maturity." 

It  may  be  impossible  to  analyse  the  causes 
which  produced  this  re-awakening  of  intellect- 
ual energy.  But  it  is  not  beyond  the  scope  of 
criticism  to  sketch  out  its  essential  character, 
and  to  describe  the  main  conditions  mider 
which  it  was  effected.  In  the  first  place,  we 
must  bear  steadily  in  mind  the  fact  that  the 
Renaissance  was,  above  all  things,  a  spiritual 
process,  a  reacquisition  of  mental  lucidity  and 
moral  independence  after  centuries  of  purblind 
somnambuhsm.  For  this  reason,  I  have 
elected  to  define  the  genius  of  Renaissance  as 
the  New  Spirit;  and  I  propose  to  consider,  as 
broadly  and  generally  as  possible,  what  were 
the  leading  characteristics  of  this  New  Spirit. 

Antecedent  circumstances,  affecting  the 
whole  of  Europe  in  varying  degrees,  rendered 
the  emergence  of  spiritual  liberty  possible. 
These  were  the  absorption  of  the  Teutonic  bar- 
barians into  a  common  political  system,  at  the 

20 


head  of  which  stood  the  Holy  Roman  Church 
and  the  Holy  Roman  Empire ;  the  assimilation 
of  one  religious  creed  by  all  parts  and  parcels 
of  the  European  community;  the  definition  of 
those  integers  as  separate  nationalities,  with 
languages  of  their  own,  and  similar  monarch- 
ical institutions;  the  possession  by  them  all  of 
one  learned  language  in  the  Latin  tongue; 
finally,  the  gradual  relaxation  of  the  mediseval 
dualism  of  Church  and  Empire,  and  the  high 
degree  of  autonomy  and  social  comfort  at- 
tained by  the  Italians.  The  reason  why  Italy 
took  the  lead  in  the  Renaissance  may  be  found 
not  only  in  her  favourable  geographical  and 
economical  conditions,  but  also  in  her  un- 
broken connection  with  the  antique  past,  her 
intolerance  of  feudalism,  and  her  essentially 
mundane  temperament.  The  power  of  the 
Empire  had  been  sapped  by  its  localization  in 
Germany,  by  the  rivalries  of  monarchies  and 
republics  claiming  independence,  and  by  the 
fierce  war  waged  against  the  House  of  Hohen- 
stauffen  through  successive  papacies.  The  au- 
thority of  the  Church  had  been  weakened  by 

21 


her  Avignonian  exile,  by  tlie  councils  of  Con- 
stance and  Basic,  by  Wycliffe  and  the  Lollards 
in  England,  by  the  Hussites  in  Bohemia,  by 
the  heretics  of  Provence,  the  Paterines  of 
Italy. 

The  Occidental  nations,  in  the  last  years  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  had  thus  attained  a  point  at 
which,  v>ithout  being  conscious  of  a  coming 
change,  they  were  ready  to  enter  upon  a  new 
epoch  of  civilization.  We  might  compare  them 
to  a  liquid  mass  of  molten  metal  at  the  moment 
when  it  is  about  to  settle  do^vn  and  solidify. 
When  that  happens,  it  is  not  the  whole  mass 
which  suddenly  becomes  stationary,  but  the 
curdling  process  begins  in  what  may  be  called 
the  most  propitious  quarter.  Here  a  crust  or  a 
cake  forms,  and  this  acts  like  a  nucleus  for  the 
surrounding  fluid  substance.  Something  of  the 
same  sort  occurs  in  all  processes  of  crystalliza- 
tion or  gelation.  These  analogies  are  clearly 
defective;  for  what  took  place  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Renaissance  ought  properly  to  be 
compared  to  organic  rather  than  to  solidifying 
change.    We  could  perhaps  discover  a  better 

22 


metaphor  in  embryology,  appealing  to  that 
speck  in  the  ovum  out  of  which  the  complex 
vital  structure  has  to  be  evolved.  However, 
let  that  pass.  In  the  phenomenon  with  which 
we  are  now  occupied,  the  propitious  quarter, 
the  nucleus  of  the  ovum,  was  Italy.  The 
reasons  for  this  priority  of  the  Italians  have 
been  already  assigned.  They  never  broke  with 
the  Roman  past.  They  absorbed  the  Ostro- 
goths and  Lombards.  They  resisted  feudal- 
ism. They  kept  their  language  close  to  Latin. 
Their  cities  bore  antique  names,  and  abounded 
in  monuments  of  the  classical  past.  They 
created  the  Roman  Church,  and  at  the  same 
time  they  were  the  least  imposed  on  by  its 
spiritual  pretensions.  Farther  than  all  the 
sister-nations,  they  had  advanced  upon  the  path 
of  material  and  social  prosperity.  They  held 
the  trade  of  the  world  in  their  grasp.  They 
lived  in  diplomatical  and  commercial  relations 
with  the  East,  which  was  only  known  to  Eng- 
lishmen and  Franks  and  Germans  as  the  land 
of  hated  unbelievers.  They  owned  no  allegi- 
ance to  kings,  and  were  loosely  bound  together 

28 


in  a  mesh  of  independent,  mutually  repellent 
and  attractive  city-states.  It  devolved  upon 
them  therefore  to  revive  the  positive  and  plastic 
genius  of  the  antique  world,  and  by  combining 
this  'v\ith  what  remained  alive  of  mediaevalism, 
to  give  form  and  substance  to  that  hybrid 
which  I  have  called  the  New  Spirit. 

These  considerations  help  us  to  understand 
the  importance  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II. 
in  the  history  of  the  Renaissance;  the  hatred 
with  which  he  inspired  orthodox  Christians ;  his 
precocious  prefigurement  of  the  coming  epoch. 
I  must  repeat  that  the  Renaissance  was  essen- 
tially intellectual — an  outburst  of  mental  and 
moral  independence.  The  first  and  leading 
note  of  it  is  the  reassertion  of  the  individual  in 
his  rights  to  think  and  feel,  to  shape  his  con- 
duct according  to  the  dictates  of  his  reason. 
The  resurgence  of  personality  in  the  realm  of 
thought  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  matter.  In 
the  sphere  of  action,  personality  plaj^ed  freely 
enough  throughout  the  INIiddle  Ages.  But 
men  were  agreed  then  to  accept  a  certain  sys- 
tem of  thought,  elaborated  mainly  by  Church- 

24 


men.  Dominant  conceptions  prevailed.  We 
have  the  spectacle  of  whole  nations  in  move- 
ment towards  the  Holy  Land,  governed  by  a 
romantic  idea.  We  have  the  no  less  instructive 
spectacle  of  Henry  of  England  doing  penance 
at  the  shrine  of  Becket,  of  Henry  of  Germany 
kneeling  in  the  snow  at  Canossa.  But  now 
comes  Frederick  II.,  the  most  mundane  and 
humane  of  rulers,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  him 
through  the  mists  of  prejudice  and  calumny; 
also  the  most  sceptical,  most  positive,  perhaps 
most  cynical  of  thinkers.  He  undertakes  a 
Crusade,  and  brings  it  to  a  not  inglorious  con- 
clusion by  a  treaty  with  the  Sultan.  He  stocks 
his  castles  of  Apulia  with  Saracen  troops,  and 
colonizes  waste  lands  with  infidels.  His  court 
is  the  rallying-point  for  free-thinkers,  artists, 
men  of  letters,  selected  without  regard  for 
creed  or  nationality.  He  is  an  incarnation  of 
the  first  effective  force  of  the  Renaissance — 
personality  in  the  sphere  of  thought,  self-con- 
scious of  its  aims,  self-governed  in  its  conduct. 
During  this  shifting  of  the  scenes  from 
mediaeval  to  modern  modes  of  thinking,  in  this 

25 


gestation  of  the  New  Spirit  and  creation  of 
the  hybrid  which  shall  fuse  past  and  future  to 
form  our  present,  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish 
objects  very  clearly.  The  protagonists  of  the 
movement  often  seem  to  contradict  themselves. 
Frederick  II.  issues  edicts  against  the  Cathari 
and  Paterini,  probably  because  he  regarded 
them  as  social  anarchists,  possibly  because  he 
strove  in  his  di])l()macy  to  humor  the  Church. 
Out  of  the  midst  of  positive  and  practical  Italy 
arise  the  last  great  flaming  stars  of  Christian 
faith,  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic.  The 
Church  is  still  so  vital  that  she  comprehends  the 
utility  of  incorporating  the  Umbrian  visionary 
and  the  Spanish  tyrant  over  souls  into  her  sys- 
tem. Still,  whether  we  regard  Frederick  XL, 
or  Francis  and  Dominic,  the  fact  of  sharply 
defined  individuality  emerges  into  prominence. 
Dante,  whose  master-work,  the  Divine 
Comedy,  is  riglitly  held  to  be  the  everlasting 
monument  of  mediaeval  ism  on  the  eve  of  disso- 
lution, illustrates  the  same  fact.  He  remained 
within  the  sphere  of  mediaeval  ideas  in  his  reli- 
gious creed,  his  philosophy,  his  political  ideals. 

26 


But  he  displayed  his  personal  independence, 
the  freedom  of  his  intellect,  not  merely  in  the 
critical  judgments  he  passed  upon  the  lowest 
and  the  most  exalted  of  his  predecessors  and 
contemporaries,  not  merely  in  the  vivid  picture 
he  left  of  Italy  seething  in  internecine  civic 
struggles,  but  also,  and  far  more  effectively,  in 
the  quality  of  his  great  epic.  Whatever  else 
the  Divine  Comedy  may  be,  it  is  the  record  of 
the  man  who  made  it,  the  intense  and  fiery  self- 
delineation  of  a  haughty  spirit.  Previous 
literatm-e  of  the  medieeval  epoch  had  given 
birth  to  nothing  of  the  sort.  At  one  bound  art 
leapt  from  the  region  of  dim  generalities  or 
genial  arras-w^ork,  into  that  of  incisive  defini- 
tions and  glyptic  purity  of  outline.  The  New 
Spirit,  in  its  first  phase  of  personahty,  self- 
conscious  and  self-assertive,  shone  forth 
through  Dante's  poem,  albeit  the  atmosphere 
he  breathed,  the  material  he  handled,  were  stil^ 
mediceval. 

The  second  phase  in  this  genesis  of  the  New 
Spirit  may  be  described  as  Curiosity.  Person- 
ality had  shaken  itself  to  some  extent  free.    In 

27 


what  are  called  the  heresies  of  the  mediaeval 
epoch,  it  showed  a  w  ill  to  investigate  principles, 
to  interrogate  Church  doctrine,  to  reconstitute 
the  scheme  of  society  upon  some  fresh  basis. 
Personality  began  to  vindicate  the  rights  of  the 
natural  man,  queried  the  condemnation  of  the 
flesh  and  senses,  lusted  after  the  world  in 
thought  as  well  as  deed.  In  men  like  Wychffe 
and  Huss  it  disputed  the  sole  right  of  clerical 
tradition  to  settle  interpretations  of  Scripture. 
In  Joachim  of  Flora  it  anticipated  a  revelation 
superior  to  that  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  In 
the  Goliardi  and  the  lyrists  of  Provence,  it  gave 
the  agi'eeable  form  of  literary  art  to  appetites 
and  sentiments.  In  the  school  of  the  Averr- 
hoists  it  undermined  those  postulates  and 
axioms  upon  which  the  huge  edifice  of  scholas- 
ticism, triumphant  in  Thomas  of  Aquino,  had 
been  raised.  In  the  court  of  Frederick  II.  it 
exhibited  a  temper  akin  to  that  of  Gallio.  Pre- 
pared by  these  processes  of  incipient  scepti- 
cism, which  were  still  carried  on  within  the  ring- 
fence  of  mediaival  habits  of  thought,  semi- 
emancipated  x^ersonality  now  turned  with  eager 

28 


inquisitive  eyes  to  the  vast  neglected  store  of 
human  experience  funded  in  antique  hterature. 
Here  stretched  a  whole  untraveled  empire  of 
the  intellect.  The  men  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
though  it  lay  open  to  them,  had  wilfully 
refused  to  explore  that  realm;  or,  when  they 
crossed  its  borders,  they  arrived  with  preju- 
dices and  preoccupations  which  obscured  their 
mental  vision.  The  pioneers  of  the  New  Spirit, 
exhilarated  by  the  novelty  of  their  experience, 
surveyed  fertile  and  abundant  regions,  beyond 
the  jurisdiction,  untainted  by  the  trail,  of 
ecclesiastical  authority.  Into  this  paradise  of 
mind  and  imagination  they  leapt  like  boys,  for 
the  pure  pleasure  of  the  excursion,  without  any 
settled  intention  of  rebelling  against  IMother 
Church.  Their  keenly  awakened  personality 
made  them  desire  to  know  what  man  had  been 
under  diverse  intellectual  and  moral  conditions, 
when  no  thoughts  oppressed  him  of  damnation 
and  eternity.  Seeking  thus,  they  arrived  at  a 
superior  self-knowledge,  and  became  aware  of 
their  own  liberty.    To  their  ineffable  satisfac- 

29 


tion  they  entered  into  the  ])ossession  of  a  nobler 

and  serener  earth. 

"Largior  hie  campos  jether  et  lumine  vestit 
Purpureo,  solemque  suum,  sua  sidera  norunt." 

That  Elysium  of  the  classic  past  was  crowded 
with  gods  and  heroes,  with  orators  and  poets 
and  historians.  Its  monuments  of  art  and  liter- 
ature were  supereminent  in  beauty  and  in  pas- 
sion; throbbing  with  l>Tic  life,  pulsing  with 
music,  resonant  with  song,  resplendent  with 
imagined  light  and  colour.  Its  records  un- 
rolled majestic  pageants  of  rising  and  falling 
empires,  of  glorious  actions  and  heroic  lives. 
In  this  congenial  atmosphere. their  own  resus- 
citated senses  seemed  to  thrive.  Their  frost- 
bound  perceptions  thawed,  their  cramped  limbs 
began  to  move  with  new  delight  in  living.  The 
natural  man,  no  longer  cowed  by  the  conviction 
of  his  sinfulness,  stood  up  and  faced  the  heav- 
ens. The  carnal  appetites  were  dignified  by 
contact  with  ideal  loveliness  and  tragic  destiny. 
This,  I  imagine,  was  the  attitude  of  mind 
which  resulted  in  Humanism.  We  are  vvont  to 
talk  about  the  "Revival  of  Learning."     But 


let  us  not  forget  the  sense  of  inebriation,  the 
revel  and  the  riot,  which  attended  that  irrup- 
tion of  mediaeval  scholars  into  the  Elysium  of 
the  past.  Let  us  realise  the  intense  joy  with 
which  they  discovered  that  this  Elysium  was  no 
dream,  but  concrete  fact,  was  in  sober  earnest 
the  truth  of  what  men  had  been,  might  again 
be,  ought  to  be,  were  made  to  be.  In  their  first 
exultation,  they  dubbed  their  acquisitions  by 
the  significant  title  of  "Humaniora"  or  the 
things  which  properly  belong  to  man,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  things  with  which  the  Church 
and  scholasticism  defrauded  and  perplexed  his 
reason. 

Petrarch  is  the  hero  of  this  stage.  He  com- 
bined a  personality  no  less  defined  and  even 
more  self-conscious  than  Dante's,  with  the 
curiosity  of  the  New  Spirit.  His  book  of 
poems  upon  Laura  is  the  subtle  analysis  of  a 
highly  sensitive  soul.  His  affection  for  the 
author  of  the  Confessions  proves  him  to  have 
been  alread}^  possessed  with  the  ache  and 
yearning  of  the  modern  temperament — ''la 
maladie  de  la  pensee — I'amour  de  I'impossible 

31 


— I'autopsie  psychologique  de  I'ame."  This 
was  one  aspect  of  Petrarch's  genius.  The 
other  was  a  manful  behef  in  scholarshi]),  a  per- 
ception that  classic  literature  would  furnish  the 
means  of  spiritual  rehabilitation.  He  was  the 
first  to  understand  that  the  dignity  of  man  as  a 
rational  being  must  be  re-established,  not  by 
combating  theology,  but  by  leaving  it  alone, 
and  by  assimilating  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients. 
Petrarch  approached  the  classics  with  the  tact 
and  sensibility  which  had  been  lacking  to  medi- 
aeval students.  Virgil,  and  Ovid,  and  Cicero 
were  for  him  no  magicians,  no  heretics,  and  no 
mystagogues,  but  men  of  like  nature  with  him- 
self, superior  indeed  in  culture,  yet  such  as  he 
could  comprehend,  make  friends  with,  learn 
from.  Petrarch  bridged  the  chasm  of  the  INIid- 
dle  Ages,  even  as  INIilton's  Satan,  when  he 
made  that  traversable  roadway  across  chaos. 
After  him  scholars  freely  passed  into  Elysium 
and  returned  into  the  world  of  common  day. 
History  was  seen  to  be  continuous,  and  the 
unity  of  the  human  race  was  demonstrated. 
Humanism,  when  once  started  by  Petrarch, 

82 


rapidly  pursued  its  course  of  accumulation  and 
assimilation.  The  tale  of  the  Revival  in  its 
several  stages — collection  of  manuscripts,  in- 
terpretation of  texts,  study  of  style,  resuscita- 
tion of  Greek  learning,  printing,  translation, 
and  so  forth — has  been  so  often  told  that  there 
is  no  need  to  retrace  it.  I  must  pause,  how- 
ever, to  contemplate  the  mental  and  moral  atti- 
tude of  the  humanists  more  closely. 

"We  go,"  said  Cyriac  of  Ancona,  "to  awake 
the  dead."  It  was  in  that  frame  of  mind  that 
Petrarch's  immediate  successors  entered  the 
classical  Elysium  by  the  bridge  which  he  had 
built.  But  the  dead  whom  they  found  there 
were  at  once  seen  to  be  the  really  living.  These 
scholars  then  came  back  with  the  firm  convic- 
tion that  contemporary  people  of  importance 
— hair-splitting  dialecticians,  superstitious 
quacks,  relic-mongers,  jugglers  with  holy  ves- 
sels, salesmen  of  absolutions — were  the  dead  or 
dying.  Defunct  and  obsolete  for  them  were 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  doctors  seraphic  and 
angelic,  doctors  of  laws,  saints  of  silly  miracles, 
childish  worshippers  at  shrines,  sleek,  cunning 

33 


Levites  in  the  tabernacle.  Alive  and  luminous 
with  ever-during  glory  rose  the  ])oets  and 
philosoi)hers,  the  orators  and  statesmen,  the 
artists  and  law-givers,  of  the  ancient  world. 
These  worthies  and  heroes  had  either  lived  be- 
fore Christ  or  had  ignored  the  shining  of  his 
light.  Therefore  Dante,  although  he  described 
them  as — 

"Genti  con  occhi  tardi  e  gravi 
Di  grande  autorita  ne'  lor  sembianti" — 

placed  them,  without  the  smallest  sense  of  the 
injustice  and  absurdity  of  their  damnation, 
upon  the  first  circle  of  Hell,  within  earshot  of 
the  wailings  and  the  shriekings  which  eternally 
rise  from  its  torture-chambers.  The  humanists 
having  adopted  these  same  noble  personages  as 
their  sole  guides  in  the  lore  of  living,  as  the 
only  teachers  of  true  wisdom,  could  not  main- 
tain the  orthodox  attitude  of  reprobation.  Yet 
scholarship  was  too  engrossed  with  its  own 
labour  of  discovery  to  open  a  crusade  against 
Church  practices  or  dogmas.  AVhy  waste  valu- 
able time  in  squabbles  with  ignorant  authority 
when  that  w^onderful  region,  the  dreamland  of 

34 


a  reality  more  real,  a  truth  more  true  than  daily 
life,  awaited  exploration?  In  this  way  pagan- 
ism filtered  tacitly  but  surely,  like  an  elixir  of 
fresh  mountain  air,  or  like  a  miasma  from  foul 
marshes — according  to  the  point  of  view  one 
takes  of  the  matter — into  the  intellectual  con- 
stitution of  humanism.  The  significance  of 
this  will  aj3pear  at  a  later  point  of  our  inquiry. 
At  present  it  is  enough  to  remark  that  the  curi- 
osity of  the  New  Spirit  early  generated 
Ration  alls  JR. 

We  cannot  connect  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
fine  arts  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies immediately  with  the  Revival  of  Learn- 
ing. But  we  can  show  that  the  arts,  like  learn- 
ing, derived  energj^  from  the  curiosity  of  self- 
conscious  personalities,  aroused  to  vivid  inter- 
est in  the  world  aromid  them.  As  Petrarch 
revealed  a  new  insight  into  literature,  so  Giotto 
and  Nicolo  Pisano  displayed  a  sense  of  natural 
beauty,  a  feeling  for  form  and  composition,  a 
power  over  dramatic  action  and  emotional  ex- 
pression, which  had  been  unknown  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.     The  painters  and  the  sculptors  of 

35 


the  early  Renaissance  looked  on  the  world 
around  them  with  eyes  from  which  the  scales 
of  centuries  had  fallen.  They  soon  began  to 
particularize,  each  individual  forming  his  man- 
ner, selecting  what  pleased  or  touched  him 
most  in  nature,  aiming  solely  at  the  best  and 
truest  interpretation.  This  led  to  profound 
study  of  details,  careful  anatomy  and  drawing 
of  the  human  nude,  elaborate  experiments  in 
perspective,  subtle  attempts  to  render  atmo- 
sphere, exquisite  sympathy  with  plant-struc- 
ture, birds,  beasts,  flowers,  and  shells.  At  first 
the  artists  served  the  Church.  Giotto  and  his 
school  covered  the  cathedrals  of  Italy  with 
Bible  histories,  legends  of  the  saints,  allegories 
relating  to  ecclesiastical  dogma.  But  when 
the  Revival  of  Learning  filled  men's  minds 
with  classical  mythologj'-  and  story,  the  artists 
turned  their  attention  with  fresh  delight  and 
with  no  less  scrupulous  sympathy  to  the  Greek 
Pantheon  and  the  deeds  of  Roman  worthies. 
Art  was  indifferent  to  the  spiritual  nature  of 
the  subject,  impartial  in  the  bestowal  of  her 
skill  and  pains.     After  this  fashion  sculj^ture 

36 


and  painting  assisted  Humanism,  by  exhibit- 
ing through  plastic  form  and  colour  the  unity 
of  the  spirit  of  man  under  both  Christian  and 
pagan  aspects.  St.  Sebastian  might  have  been 
a  Christian  martyr,  and  Antinous  the  deified 
mignon  of  a  pagan  emperor;  but  art  only  saw 
their  common  qualities  of  beauty,  convenient 
opportunities  for  depicting  naked  young  men 
in  the  prime  of  life.  A  dead  Christ  and  a  liv- 
ing Hercules  had  equal  merit  if  the  torso  was 
well  modelled.  Female  charm  shone  forth  in 
St.  Lucy  and  the  Magdalene  as  agreeably  as  in 
Aphrodite  and  the  Graces.  Moreover,  in  addi- 
tion to  this  reduction  of  both  pagan  and 
Christian  subject-matter  to  a  common  sesthet- 
ical  denominator,  the  fine  arts  contributed  what 
may  be  called  Naturalism  to  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  New  Spirit.  Naturalism  was  the 
product  of  artistic  curiosity,  as  Rationalism 
had  been  the  product  of  the  humanistic  curios- 
ity. 

This  is  a  point  of  some  importance. 
Sculptors  and  painters  worked  in  complete 
independence.  So  long  as  they  did  not  outrage 

50030 


relifrious  feeling  and  moral  decency  too 
brutalh',  they  were  free  to  follow  their  own 
predilections.  Like  Signorelli,  they  might 
cover  the  arabesques  of  Heaven  and  Hell  with 
male  and  female  nudities  displayed  in  gro- 
tesque and  fantastic  postures.  Like  Filarete, 
the}^  might  mould  the  Rape  of  Ganj^mede  upon 
the  bronze  gates  of  St.  Peter's.  Their  duty 
was  to  succeed  in  beautiful  presentation  and 
expression.  In  order  to  arrive  at  this  result 
they  laboured  with  enthusiasm  at  the  technique 
of  their  crafts,  they  studied  natural  objects 
minutely,  and  made  themselves  familiar  >vith 
every  form  of  fact.  Naturalism,  as  liberated 
by  artistic  practice,  proved  later  on  of  great 
service  to  the  physical  sciences.  It  stimulated 
habits  of  close  observation,  bred  a  craving  after 
exact  knowledge,  freed  the  mind  from  preju- 
dices regarding  the  uncleanliness  or  repulsive- 
ness  of  anything  whicli  could  be  found  in 
nature.  Some  of  the  earliest  mathematicians, 
anatomists,  physiologists,  in  Italy  were  artists. 
In  Leo  Rattista  Alberti,  in  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
in  JNIichelangelo  Buonarotti,  we  have  men  who 

38 


combined  the  subtlest  sensibility  to  carnal 
beauty,  the  most  thorough  command  of  form 
and  colour,  with  profound  practical  science 
and  with  those  prophetical  indagations  which 
contain  the  germs  of  luminous  discovery. 
Naturalism,  again,  is  the  direct  opposite  of 
mj^sticism.  Insofar  as  mediaeval  Christianity 
was  mystical,  the  figurative  and  naturalistic 
representation  of  its  dogmas  inflicted  serious 
injury  upon  the  fabric  of  the  creed.  The 
Creator  did  not  gain  in  dignitj^  by  being  repre- 
sented as  an  old  man  with  a  hoary  beard.  The 
Trinity  was  reduced  to  the  same  level  as  the 
Pope,  when  it  appeared  as  a  robed  pontiff  with 
a  triple  crown;  it  became  ridiculous  under  the 
aspect  of  an  old  man,  a  white  dove,  and  a  cruci- 
fix. Moreover,  people  soon  perceived  that 
Pagan  mj^thology  was  not  only  more  enticing 
and  attractive,  but  also  more  adapted  to  plastic 
presentation,  than  the  mythology  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Gods  and  heroes,  nymphs  and 
Graces,  suited  the  sensuousness  of  arts  which 
aimed  at  corporeal  loveliness,  far  better  than 
emaciated     saints,     disgusting     martyrdoms, 


/ 


39 


crucifixions,  and  infernal  torments.  Silent  and 
unperceived,  art,  by  its  naturalism,  sapped 
orthodoxy  much  in  the  same  way  as  scholar- 
ship, by  its  rationalism,  was  serving  the  same 
purpose. 

Naturalism  did  not  confine  its  influence  to 
the  arts  of  form  and  colour.  It  very  early 
invaded  literature,  especially  fiction,  poetry, 
and  narrative.  Boccaccio,  like  his  master, 
Petrarch,  was  both  a  humanist  and  a  poet  of 
marked  individuality.  In  his  former  capacity 
he  gave  a  start  to  the  study  of  Greek,  and  did 
yeoman's  service  by  making  miscellaneous 
compilations  and  collections  from  the  classics. 
In  poetry  he  ranks  as  the  first  and  one  of  the 
greatest  of  modern  naturalists.  This  is  evi- 
dent, not  only  in  the  Decameron,  but  also  in  the 
versified  romances  which  he  composed  so  flu- 
ently. Boccaccio  bequeathed  to  Italy  a  pecu- 
liar type  of  literature,  in  close  relation  to  the 
plastic  arts,  which,  after  passing  through  the 
hands  of  Sannazaro,  Pulci,  De  Medici,  Poli- 
ziano,  Boiardo,  Bandello,  reached  its  climax  in 
Ariosto.    The  enormous  influence  exercised  by 

4)0 


this  great  writer  over  posterity  was  not  due  to 
the  commanding  grandeur  of  his  genius,  but 
to  the  fact  that  naturahsm  formed  an  essential 
ingredient  of  the  New  Spirit.  Boccaccio,  as 
novehst,  remained  unrivalled;  but,  as  poet,  he 
fell  below^  the  level  of  Poliziano  and  Boiardo. 
It  was  his  merit  to  have  imported  crude,  un- 
abashed, and  jocund  naturahsm  into  the  sphere 
of  monumental  literatm  e. 

The  New  Spirit  advanced  under  retarding 
influences  of  Catholicity  and  mediaeval  dul- 
ness.  These  drawbacks,  however,  were  not  so 
formidable  as  might  appear.  Neither  scholar- 
ship nor  art  assumed  a  position  of  direct  antag- 
onism to  Christianity;  and  though  they  were 
creating  an  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which 
orthodoxy  could  not  hope  to  survive  and  thrive, 
their  first  aspect  seemed  both  imiocent  and 
agreeable.  The  Church  had  become  secular 
and  mundane,  indifferent  to  her  real  essence 
and  vocation,  merged  in  diplomacies  and  com- 
promises. Unaware  of  any  special  danger, 
her  most  enlightened  sons,  men  dedicated  to 
study  by  the  fact  of  their  profession,  felt  the 

41 


giist  of  the  new  intellectual  life  abroad  in 
Europe.  Her  chiefs,  the  popes  and  cardinals, 
regarded  scholarshi])  as  an  adornment  of  their 
social  culture,  and  art  as  a  convenient  hand- 
maid of  their  faith.  The  one  was  welcomed  in 
the  palace  and  the  council  chamber,  the  other 
in  the  cathedral  and  the  oratory.  Humanism, 
in  particular,  proved  at  the  outset  a  substantial 
all}^  against  astrologers,  Averrhoists,  wrangl- 
ing scholastics,  sordid  monks,  and  all  the 
fanatical  free-lances  who  are  obnoxious  to 
privileged  establishments.  The  fabric  of  the 
Church  appeared  so  sohd,  humanism  so  en- 
lightened, art  so  pious,  that  Catholicity  felt 
justified  in  swimming  with  the  tide.  She 
thought,  and  not  unreasonably  thought,  that 
she  might  acclimatise  the  New  Spirit  and 
secure  it  for  her  service,  as  she  had  annexed  the 
fervent  charity-  of  Francis,  the  persecuting 
zeal  of  Dominic.  Owing  to  the  easy-going 
temper  of  the  Roman  Curia,  and  to  the  indif- 
ference of  scholarship  for  theological  disputes, 
the  New  Spirit  obtained  a  century  of  quiet 
working  at  the  very  centre  of  European  life. 

42 


When  the  Great  Schism  came  to  an  end, 
and  the  Popes  returned  to  reign  in  Rome,  the 
triumph  of  humanism  v/as  secured.  The  first 
pontiff  of  this  new  regime,  Nicholas  V.,  was  a 
distinguished  scholar,  derived  in  a  direct  Hne 
from  Petrarch.  The  next  pontiff  of  impor- 
tance, Pius  II.,  was  a  versatile  diplomatist  and 
man  of  letters,  somewhat  akin  to  Leo  Battista 
Alberti  in  temi^erament,  sensitive  at  all  points 
to  the  charms  of  nature  and  of  art,  enamoured 
with  the  delicacies  and  ingenuities  of  human- 
istic rhetoric.  These  men  gave  tone  to  the 
Papacy,  when  Rome  once  more  became  a 
capital,  and  when  the  Holy  See  entered  into 
political  relations  on  a  common  footing  with 
the  despots  and  republics  of  Italy. 

The  whole  peninsula  at  this  period  (1447- 
1464)  had  been  saturated  with  humanism. 
Scholars  educated  in  the  lecture-rooms  of 
Filelfo  and  Guarino  held  office  as  chancellors, 
secretaries,  envoys,  orators  on  state  occasions, 
protonotaries,  court-chamberlains.  The  new 
learning  was  the  passport  for  young  men  of 
ability  into  all  places  of  secular  and  ecclesi- 

43 


astical  importance.  No  one  regarded  their 
morality,  tlieir  ortliodoxy,  their  ])rivate  opin- 
ions or  their  personal  conduct.  It  was  sufficient 
if  they  commanded  the  main  thin^rs  needful  at 
the  moment:  the  tongue  of  the  fluent  rhetori- 
cian, the  pen  of  the  ready  writer,  the  memory 
of  the  student  stocked  with  antique  erudition. 
We  marvel  at  the  rapidity  with  which  this 
modern  type  of  culture  supplanted  mediiisval- 
ism.  But  the  rapidity  which  moves  our  wonder 
is  the  proof  of  healthy  and  organic  growth. 
One  eminent  family  at  Florence  contributed  in 
no  small  measure  to  the  triumph  of  the  New 
Spirit.  The  JSIedici,  through  four  generations, 
beginning  with  Cosimo  Pater  Patriae,  passing 
through  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  and  Leo  X., 
culminating  in  Clement  VII.,  sustained  the 
cause  of  humanism  and  of  art.  Nor  did  they 
stand  alone.  The  lords  of  Milan  and  Rimini, 
the  kings  of  Naples,  the  dukes  of  Ferrara  and 
Urbino,  all  the  minor  potentates  in  every  city- 
state,  vied  with  one  another  in  conforming  to 
this  novel  type  of  civility.  Italians  of  all 
regions  and  all  political  diversities  found  them- 

44 


selves  confederated  by  common  sympathy  with 
the  New  Spirit. 

Meanwhile,  Christianity  continued  to  be 
the  official  religion  of  the  nation.  But  the  tem- 
per of  the  new  civility  was  pagan.  Sensuous 
in  art,  sceptical  in  study,  it  rejected  asceticism 
and  derided  dogma.  "Let  us  enjoy  the  Papacy 
now  that  we  have  got  it,"  said  one  Pope.  *'If 
we  believe  nothing  ourselves,  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  interfere  with  believers,"  said 
another.  "How  much  hath  that  lie  of  Christ 
profited  the  world,"  is  a  third  of  these  Papal 
utterances.  And  those  who  acted  more  than 
they  spoke — Popes  like  Sixtus  IV.  and  Alex- 
ander VI. — presented  a  glaring  spectacle  of 
Antichrist  enthroned  upon  St.  Peter's  chair. 
If  such  were  the  shepherds,  judge  what  were 
the  flocks! 

The  paganism  of  the  Italian  Renaissance, 
of  which  so  much  has  been  said,  and  justly,  was 
a  very  real  thing.  Humanism  and  art,  by 
returning  to  Greek  and  Roman  ideals  of 
thought  and  conduct,  and  by  emphasising  the 
sensuous  elements  of  life,  created  a  fine  aesthetic 

45 


atmosphere,  in  which  the  emanci])ated  person- 
ality of  the  modern  men  moved  freely,  feeling 
at  hberty  to  sport  with  natural  inchnations. 
Vices  and  passions  had  been  frequent  enough, 
and  forcible  enough,  in  the  mediasval  period; 
but  then  they  were  recognized  as  sins  and  con- 
tradictions of  the  dominant  ideal.  Now  they 
assumed  forms  of  elegance  and  beauty,  claim- 
ing condonation  on  the  score  of  polite  culture. 
The  scepticism  inherent  in  men  who  criticised 
Christianity  from  the  standpoint  of  antique 
manners,  terminated  in  a  not  repulsive  cynic- 
ism. Society"  strove  to  be  epicurean,  but  did 
not  quite  succeed,  for  the  barbarian  and  the 
ascetic  had  not  been  eradicated. 

The  paganism  of  the  Renaissance  might  be 
described  as  moral  and  religious  indifference, 
an  attitude  of  not  ungenial  toleration  towards 
believers  and  unbelievers,  saints  and  sinners. 
In  like  manner  the  rationalism  of  the  Renais- 
sance was  intellectual  indifference,  interest  in 
thoughts  without  regard  for  the  sources  whence 
they  came  or  the  particular  shade  of  opinion 
they  denoted.    The  naturalism  of  the  Renais- 

46 


sance  was  sensuous  indifference,  an  attitude  of 
sympathetic  observation  toward  everything  in 
nature,  without  false  shame  or  loathing,  an 
openness  of  sensibiHty  to  all  impressions.  These 
three  factors  were  needed  for  the  formation  of 
the  modern  analytical  spirit,  which  is  impartial 
in  judgment,  unprejudiced  for  or  against  reli- 
gious and  ethical  codes,  reckless  as  to  the 
results  of  its  method,  indifferent  as  to  the 
moral  or  gesthetical  qualities  of  the  thing  to  be 
examined.  To  this  point,  then,  had  the  union 
of  personality  with  cm*iosity  or  mental  appe- 
tite brought  the  Italians  in  the  golden  age,  as 
it  is  absurdly  called,  of  Leo  X. 

The  Revival  of  Learning  was  accom- 
plished. That  is  to  say,  the  Greek  and  Latin 
authors  which  we  now  possess,  had,  with  a  very 
few  exceptions,  been  printed,  commented  and 
translated.  During  the  course  of  this  process, 
a  nevv^  organ  was  added  to  the  modern  mind, 
which  had  been  completely  lacking  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  The  elucidation  of  ancient  authors, 
the  settlement  of  texts,  and  the  comparison  of 
manuscripts,  produced  Criticism.     Generated 

47 


in  the  pagan  milieu  of  the  earlier  Renaissance, 
criticism  naturally  attacked  the  superstitions 
and  the  vices  of  the  clergy.  But  in  Italy  this 
was  done  with  good  humour  by  humanists  like 
Poggio  and  novelists  like  Bandello.  They  did 
not  mean  mischief,  and  aimed  at  no  revolution 
in  the  Church.  The  situation  became  more 
delicate  ^^hen  Christian  dogma,  ecclesiastical 
tradition,  the  principles  of  private  and  public 
ethics,  the  Bibhcal  cosmology,  the  philosophy 
of  Aquinas,  were  subjected  in  turn  to  destruct- 
ive analysis.  It  was  at  the  Court  of  Naples, 
during  the  warfare  carried  on  between  the 
House  of  Aragon  and  the  Holy  See,  that 
humanism  first  showed  its  teeth  in  earnest. 
Lorenzo  Valla  attacked  the  temporalities  of 
Rome  by  his  treatise  on  "The  erroneously  be- 
lieved and  falsely  fabricated  Donation  of  Con- 
stantino." The  same  critic  declared  the  epistle 
of  Christ  to  Abgarus  a  forgery,  sneered  at  the 
bad  Latin  of  the  Vulgate,  and  denied  the 
authenticity  of  the  Apostles'  creed.  Machia- 
velli,  working  in  another  region,  openly  pro- 
claimed that  the  monastic  virtues  of  humility 

4,8 


and  obedience  sapped  virility  and  character. 
He  proved  the  Papacy  to  have  been  the  source 
of  moral  and  political  weakness  to  Italy.  He 
studied  history  from  a  coldly  anal>i;ical  and 
positive  point  of  view,  treating  mankind  as  a 
political  community,  governed  by  ability  and 
might,  without  reference  to  a  provident  Deity, 
Copernicus,  in  the  field  of  astronomy, 
dethroned  Ptolemy,  and  made  the  sun  the  cen- 
tre of  our  system.  Pomponazzo  called  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  in  question.  Telesio 
pronounced  that  interrogation  of  Nature  is 
the  only  basis  for  a  sound  philosophy.  On  all 
sides,  therefore,  criticism  initiated  a  revolt 
against  authority.  That  independent  and  self- 
conscious  personality,  which  formed  the  vital 
principle  of  the  Renaissance  movement,  had 
arrived  at  asserting  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment. Fortified  by  curiosity,  rationalism, 
naturalism,  the  critical  reason  now  rejected 
everything  which  could  not  be  proved  by  posi- 
tive methods  of  analysis.  In  other  words, 
Modern  Science  had  been  born. 

Down  to  the  end  of  Leo  X.'s  reign,  this 

49 


advance  of  criticism  caused  little  uneasiness. 
Society,  including  the  Church,  was  imbued 
with  humanistic  scepticism  and  esthetic  sensu- 
ousness.  The  gay  and  glittering  life  of  the 
Renaissance  dazzled  the  eyes  of  all  men.  What 
if  professors  in  dark  corners  blurted  out  un- 
comfortable truths?  The  weighty  bearings 
of  their  utterances  vrere  not  perceived. 
Scandals  raised  by  Valla's  heresy  and  Pom- 
ponazzo's  materialism  disappeared  before  the 
dubious  assertion  that,  while  they  speculated 
as  philosophers,  they  believed  as  Christians. 
This  convenient  sophistry  cloaked  a  multitude 
of  sins.  The  Copernican  hypothesis  was 
laughed  at  as  an  incredible  theory  started  by  a 
visionary  barbarian  from  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic.  Telesio  passed  for  a  harmless  natural 
philosopher,  a  kind  of  botanist  or  conchologist. 
No  one  noticed  the  significance  of  the  discovery 
of  America,  the  exploration  of  the  globe,  the 
proof  of  the  Antipodes.  It  sufficed  in  Lateran 
Councils  to  confirm  the  views  of  the  mediaeval 
Church  upon  disputed  topics.  This  was  the 
sop  which  a  sceptical  Pope  threw  to  ecclesias- 

50 


tics  alarmed  bj^  the  steady  spread  of  neological 
opinions. 

It  is  well  to  pause  here  for  a  moment  and 
review  the  position  which  the  New  Spirit  had 
secured  in  Italy.  In  literature,  art  and  specu- 
lation, it  enjoyed  an  almost  untrammelled  in- 
tellectual liberty.  But  the  temper  of  the  race 
did  not  favour  searching  theological  discus- 
sions, and  the  time  was  not  quite  ripe  for  an 
outburst  of  revolutionary  metaphysic.  The 
humanists  were  too  indifferent  and  easy-going 
— lapped  in  their  Eh^'sium  of  antiquity.  They 
aimed  at  culture  more  than  the  discovery  of 
truth.  Their  paganism  wore  a  self-indulgent 
and  immoral  aspect.  They  sneered  at 
Clu'istianity.  In  their  cynicism  they  did  not 
care  for  religion,  and  were  well  contented  to 
leave  a  Church  alone,  which  so  conveniently 
fostered  their  tastes  and  condoned  their  vices, 
^.loreover,  we  must  not  forget  that  Vv^e  are  trac- 
ing the  history  of  a  hybrid.  The  blending  of 
present  with  past,  of  pagan  with  Christian,  of 
ancient  v/ith  modern,  produced  an  inevitable 
confusion  in  men's  minds.    Thought  could  not 

51 


run  quite  clear  from  the  sediment  of  decaying 
mysticism,  dogmatism,  authority.  It  hardly 
knew  the  nature  of  its  own  audacity  until  the 
apparition  of  Giordano  Bruno.  Art  was  ham- 
pered and  indecisive  between  Olympus  and 
Calvary,  literature  clogged  by  mediaeval 
reminiscences  and  scholastic  pedantry.  The 
New  Spirit,  altliough  so  vigorous,  still  re- 
mained a  perplexed  and  seeking  force — per- 
plexed by  opposing  currents  of  influence,  cum- 
bered by  erudition,  seeking  adjustments,  grop- 
ing after  exits.  The  like  is  true  of  society  and 
individuals.  We  have  only  to  study  the 
biogi'aphies  of  typical  personages,  a  Michel- 
angelo, a  Cellini,  a  Roderigo  Borgia,  in  order 
to  perceive  that  the  same  contradictions  existed 
in  life  as  in  the  genius  of  the  age.  What  makes 
the  Renaissance  so  fascinating  and  so  difficult 
to  handle  is  the  fact  of  its  hybridism. 

But  now  the  tide  began  to  take  a  serious 
turn.  Humanism  had  been  transplanted  be- 
yond the  Alps.  Criticism  armed  the  scholars 
of  Germany  with  artillery  far  more  efficient 
than  those  light  guns  of  the  Italian  sceptics. 

52 


The  Germans  believed  in  Christianity,  and 
clung  to  their  religion.  Horrified  by  the 
paganism  of  the  South,  indignant  at  the 
cynical  hypocrisy  of  infidel  Popes  and  pre- 
lates, irritated  beyond  measure  by  the  sale  of 
indulgences  for  the  building  of  a  pompous 
temple,  the  people  stirred  in  revolt  against 
Rome.  Their  leading  humanists  applied  the 
method  of  critical  analysis  to  the  Bible,  not 
with  the  intention  of  sneering  Christianity 
away,  but  of  discovering  what  was  the  true 
essence  of  creed  which  had  been  overgrown — 
like  Glaucus  in  the  myth  of  Plato — by  weeds 
and  barnacles  at  the  bottom  of  that  dead  sea 
of  ecclesiastical  corruption.  The  Reformation 
attacked  the  authority  of  popes  and  councils; 
disputed  the  traditional  dogmas  of  orthodoxy ; 
proclaimed  the  fullest  liberty  of  private  judg- 
ment; denounced  monasticism  and  the  celi- 
bacy of  the  clergy  as  immoral  and  unscriptural ; 
and,  what  was  worse,  menaced  the  very  fabric 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  its  temporalities,  its 
hierarchy,  its  supremacy  over  souls. 

The  Reformation  must  be  regarded  as  the 

53 


})roduct  of  that  intellectual  emanci|)ation  Avhich 
started  with  the  curiosit}'  of  Petrarch  and  ])er- 
fonned  the  sta<?e.s  I  have  already  descrihed  in 
Italy.  Only  this  new  force  now  animated  a 
race  which  had  no  natural  bias  for  the  fine  arts 
and  letters,  which  disliked  ])agan  licence,  and 
was  not  ready  to  abandon  Christian  doctrine. 
Sceptical  and  revolutionary  at  its  outset,  the 
German  Reformation  speedily  revealed  the  in- 
herent conservatism  of  its  promoters.  Luther, 
Zwingli,  Calvin,  differ  as  they  might  in  minor 
details,  agreed  in  preserving  the  mahi  features 
of  the  Christian  faith  intact.  For  the  author- 
ity of  the  CJiurch  they  substituted  the  author- 
ity of  the  Bible.  Less  logical  than  the  Italians, 
they  w^ere  not  conscious  of  the  weakness  of  their 
own  position.  They  did  not  surmise  that  their 
critical  method  must  lead  inevitably  to  Vol- 
taire, Renan,  and  the  science  of  comparative 
theolog}^  Luther  w^ould  have  been  indignant 
had  he  been  told  that  he  was  playing  the  part  of 
pioneer  to  coming  Comtes  and  Huxleys.  Yet 
this  was  the  fact,  and  the  Church  in  Italy  per- 
ceived   it.      Luterano   became    equivalent    to 

infidel. 

54, 


The  Church  girded  herself  up  for  a  conflict 
to  the  death  in  defence  of  her  religious  creeds, 
her  system  of  discipline,  her  political  interests, 
her  temporal  power.  The  clash  of  Catholicism 
and  Reformation  destroyed  the  tranquil 
medium  in  which  the  New  Spirit  had  been 
thriving  and  advancing  toward  maturity.  Posi- 
tive, scientific,  analytical,  the  Genius  of  intel- 
lectual independence  and  open-mindedness 
met  ^vith  rancorous  hostility  in  both  camps. 
The  Reformers  of  Wittenberg  and  Zurich  and 
Geneva  were  at  bottom  no  less  opposed  to  free 
thought  than  were  the  Catholic  reactionaries  of 
Spain.  Calvin  burned  Servetus  fifty  years 
before  the  Roman  Inquisition  burned  Bruno. 
So  far  as  Italy  was  concerned,  the  Tridentine 
Council  extinguished,  or,  to  put  the  case  more 
exactly,  drove  underground  the  New  Spirit. 
In  Germany  the  Thirty  Years'  War  annihi- 
lated civilisation. 

It  would  be  sentimental  to  deplore  the 
waste  of  time,  of  energy,  of  human  life,  which 
this  conflict  between  Reform  and  Catholic  re- 
action involved  for  Europe.    Considering  the 

55 


different  moral  and  intellectual  temperaments 
of  Nor.th  and  South,  the  different  stages  of 
culture  attained  by  Germany  and  Italy,  the 
struggle  was  inevitable.  Nor  did  the  New 
Spirit  lose  in  the  end  bj'  the  retardation  of  its 
development.  Had  it  retained  the  complexion 
it  assumed  in  Italy  during  the  Renaissance, 
we  sliould  have  been  ethically  poorer  and  voli- 
tionally  weaker.  Imagine  a  seventeenth- 
century  Prussia  ruled  in  tastes  and  opinions  by 
humanists  like  Filelfo  and  poets  like  the 
author  of  Hermaphroditus!  Paganism,  barely 
tolerable  in  Naples,  must  have  been  repulsive 
Owhen  communicated  to  the  coarse  and 
eminently  inartistic  Borussian  temperament. 
Time,  moreover,  was  needed  to  leaven  the 
heterogeneous  masses  of  the  Occidental  nations 
with  a  common  culture.  This  has  been  done 
by  scholarship,  and  the  steady,  if  slow,  advance 
of  scientific  thought.  The  destinies  of  science 
were,  from  the  first,  secure.  And  are  we  not 
aware  that  Virtus  suh  pondere  crescit? 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Catholic  re- 
action some  of  the  calmest  and  wisest  spirits, 

56 


who  had  imbibed  the  new  philosophy  of 
thought,  but  who  were  incapable  of  siding  with 
the  Reformers — who  had,  in  fact,  gauged  the 
inherent  finality  and  vulgarity  of  Protestant 
Dissent  in  any  shape- — became  what  I  have 
elsewhere  called  religious  Whigs.  The  atti- 
tude of  men  like  Contarini,  More,  Erasmus, 
Sarpi,  has  great  interest  for  the  psychologist; 
and  a  fascinating  book  remains  to  be  written 
upon  this  group  of  thinkers.  They  dreamed 
that  the  New  Spirit  might  purge  itself  of 
Paganism,  that  Catholicism  might  cast  off  its 
superstitions  and  corruptions,  that  Reform 
might  prove  accommodating  upon  such  com- 
parative trifles  as  the  nature  of  the  eucharist 
and  salvation  by  faith.  They  imagined  an 
ideal  Europe,  in  which  religion  and  science 
should  coexist,  where  men  should  be  rational 
in  thought  and  pious  in  conduct.  But  the  very 
conditions  of  the  case  rendered  this  solution  of 
the  difficulty  impossible. 

That  the  New  Spirit  would  prove  ultimately 
intransigeant,  and  irreconcilable  to  Christian 
theology,  was  clearly  demonstrated  by  its  last 

57 


and  noblest  representative  in  Italy.  Bruno's 
life  was  cut  short  at  the  comparatively  early 
age  of  forty-foTir,  3'^et  he  left  behind  him 
voluminous  writings,  from  which  an  adequate 
idea  may  be  formed  of  his  philosophy.  As  a 
personalitj^  endoAved  with  singular  courage 
and  remarkable  independence,  Bruno  towers 
eminent  among  the  powerful  characters  of  that 
age  so  rich  in  individualities.  The  two  cur- 
rents of  Renaissance  curiosity,  which  had  pro- 
duced criticism  and  naturalism,  met  and 
blended  in  his  intellect.  As  a  thinker,  his  chief 
merit  was  to  have  perceived  the  true  bearings 
of  the  Copernican  discovery.  He  saw  that  the 
substitution  of  a  heliocentric  for  the  former 
geocentric  theory  of  our  system  destroyed  at 
one  bloAv  large  portions  of  the  Christian  myth- 
ology. But  more  than  this.  Copernicus  had 
failed  to  draw  the  logical  conclusions  of  his  own 
hj-^pothesis.  For  him,  as  for  the  elder  physic- 
ists, there  remained  a  sphere  of  fixed  stars 
enclosing  the  world  perceived  by  our  senses 
within  walls  of  crystal.  Bruno  asserted  the 
existence  of  numberless  worlds  in  space  illim- 

58 


itable.  Bolder  than  his  teacher,  and  nearer  to 
the  truth,  he  passed  far  beyond  the  flaming 
rami)arts  of  the  universe,  denied  that  there 
were  any  walls,  and  proclaimed  the  infinity  of 
space.  Space,  he  thought,  is  filled  with  ether, 
in  which  an  infinite  number  of  solar  systems 
resembling  our  own,  composed  of  similar  mate- 
rials, and  inhabited  by  countless  living  crea- 
tures, move  with  freedom.  Not  a  single  atom 
in  this  stupendous  complex  can  be  lost  or  un- 
accounted for.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  birth 
or  death,  as  generation  or  dissolution,  but  only 
a  continual  passage  of  the  infinite  and  homo- 
geneous substance  through  successive  phases 
of  finite  differentiated  existence.  This  general 
conception  of  the  universe,  which  coincides  with 
that  accepted  at  the  present  time  by  men  of 
science,  led  Bruno  to  speculations  involving  a 
theory  of  evolutionary  development,  and  to 
Avhat  would  now  be  called  the  conservation  of 
energy.  Rejecting  as  untenable  the  dualism 
of  m.ind  and  m.atter,  he  argued,  from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  intellect  in  man,  and  from  the  uni- 
versality of  form  in  all  phenomena,  that  the 

59 


essence  of  the  whole  can  best  be  grasped  by  our 
imagination  under  the  analogy  of  life  and 
spirit. 

This  brief  summary  of  Bruno's  system 
makes  it  evident  to  what  a  large  extent  he  anti- 
cipated not  only  the  philosophies  of  Descartes, 
Spinoza,  Leibnitz,  Hegel,  but  also  the  most 
recent  conclusions  of  natural  science.  In  his 
treatment  of  theology  and  ethics,  he  was  no  less 
original  and  prophetic.  He  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  evil  by  defining  it  to  be  a  relative  con- 
dition of  imperfect  development,  not  evil  in 
itself,  but  evil  to  our  partial  vision.  He  denied 
that  any  Paradise  or  Golden  Age  preceded 
human  history.  In  his  opinion,  the  fall  of 
man  from  a  primal  state  of  innocence  and  hap- 
piness is  an  absurdity  in  itself,  contradicting 
all  w^e  know  about  the  laws  of  growth.  In 
morals  he  inclined  toward  determinism.  Pass- 
ing to  theology  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term, 
he  sketched  in  outline  the  comparative  study 
of  religions.  It  is  obvious  that  he  regarded  no 
one  creed  as  final,  no  sacred  book  as  exclus- 
ively inspired,  no  single  race  as  chosen,  no 

60 


teacher  or  founder  of  a  faith  as  specially  divine, 
no  Church  as  privileged  with  salvation. 

To  this  point  had  the  New  Spirit  advanced 
when  outraged  Catholicism,  very  naturally, 
logically,  and  consistently  with  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  burned  Bruno  in  1600. 

The  synthesis  of  criticism  and  naturalism, 
which  took  this  form  with  Bruno,  a  form  usu- 
ally described  as  idealism,  though  Bruno's  o^vn 
aim  was  to  arrive  at  a  probable  conception  of 
the  universe  as  it  actually  exists,  assumed  a 
different  aspect  in  another  group  of  Italian 
thinkers,  Pomponazzo,  Telesio,  Galileo,  with 
the  physicists,  anatomists,  and  physiologists  of 
Padua.  Their  line  led  up  to  Bacon,  to  induct- 
ive and  experimental  science. 

It  was  my  business  in  the  present  essay  to 
analyse  the  main  characteristics  of  the  New 
Spirit  in  the  Italian  Renaissance.  The  liis- 
tory  of  Rationalism,  or  Naturalism,  or  Posi- 
tive Philosophy  during  the  last  three  centuries, 
and  the  sustained  conflict  of  the  New  Spirit 
with  dogmatic  theology,  is  a  subject  too  vast 
to  be  imdertaken  here.    What  the  issue  of  that 


61 


conflict  in  tlie  future  will  be  is,  I  think,  already 
certain.  The  struggle  may  continue,  perhaps, 
for  centuries,  until  the  New  Spirit  shall  have 
thoroughly  imbued  the  modern  mind,  and 
Christianity  be  gi'adually  purged  of  all  that  is 
decayed  or  obsolescent  in  its  creed,  retaining 
only  that  ethic  which  we  owe  to  it,  and  which, 
though  capable  of  being  raised  to  higher  stages, 
will  remain  the  indestructible  possession  of  the 
race. 


62 


ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH 


ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  dwell  upon  the 
biography  of  Mr.  Clough,  but  rather  to  exam- 
ine his  works,  and  to  show  in  what  their  real 
and  vital  excellence  consists.  Yet  in  order  to 
understand  these  works,  and  to  explain  away 
some  misconceptions  which  have  arisen  as  to 
the  alleged  "wasted  genius,"  "baffled  intellect," 
"unfulfilled  purpose,"  and  "disappointed  life" 
of  ]Mr.  Clough,  which  many  of  his  critics  bitter- 
ly deplore,  we  may  preface  our  review  of  his 
poems  by  a  short  notice  of  this  biography.  His 
life,  which  was  in  no  sense  of  the  word  an  event- 
ful one,  falls  naturally  into  three  periods.  The 
first  embraces  his  childhood  in  America;  his 
education  at  Rugby,  under  Dr.  Arnold,  by  con- 
tact with  whose  character  his  own  singularly 
conscientious  tone  of  mind  was  strengthened  to 
an   almost   morbid   degree;   and   his    Oxford 

65 


career.  Clou^h  entered  upon  his  life  at  Ox- 
ford during  the  great  Tractarian  movement; 
and  at  an  early  period  of  his  course  he  fell 
under  the  influence  of  Ward,  the  celebrated 
convert  to  Romanism.  The  struggles  of  this 
time  seem  to  have  entirely  shaken  his  mind 
upon  the  most  fundamental  points  of  religious 
belief,  and  to  have  caused  in  him  a  painful  and 
perturbed  state  of  feeling,  from  which  he  was 
long  in  recovering.  The  immediate  result  of 
this  disturbance  appears  to  have  been  that  he 
failed  to  take  a  first-class  in  the  final  examina- 
tions, greatly  to  the  surprise  and  disappoint- 
ment of  his  friends,  and  especially  of  Dr. 
Arnold,  who  expected  the  highest  things  from 
him.  Gradually,  ho^vever,  he  wore  off  this  de- 
pression, and  decided  upon  following  up  his 
career  at  Oxford.  In  pursuance  of  this  resolve, 
he  sought  and  obtained  a  fellowship  at  Oriel, 
and  threw  himself  with  energy'  into  the  educa- 
tional work  of  his  college  for  some  years.  But 
doubts  as  to  the  honesty  of  his  remaining  in  this 
position  seem  to  have  survived  from  his  old 
state  of  feeling,  and  to  have  grown  upon  him, 

66 


until  the  negative  conclusions  to  which  he  was 
forced  made  him  feel  obliged  to  resign  his 
tutorship  at  Oriel  in  1848,  and  his  fellowship 
soon  after  in  the  same  year.  The  magnitude 
of  this  sacrifice  to  principle  can  only  be  under- 
stood by  those  who  are  most  intimately 
acquainted  with  his  private  history,  and  who 
know  to  what  pecuniary  difficulties  he  was  ex- 
posed by  the  failure  of  his  hitherto  certain  in- 
come. It  is  enough  to  state  that  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  the  making  of  some  money  became  a 
paramount  necessity ;  and,  as  he  was  not  a  man 
who  could  mingle  literary  pursuits  with  busi- 
ness, or  poetise  in  the  intervals  of  harassing 
duties,  his  artistic  productiveness  was  limited 
by  the  barest  conditions  of  daily  life.  In  1849 
the  second  period  of  his  life  began :  it  embraces 
his  Italian  journeys,  during  which  he  com- 
posed "Amours  de  Voyage"  and  "Dipsychus;" 
his  Principalship  of  University  Hall;  and  his 
residence  in  America.  In  1853  he  took  work  in 
the  Educational  Department  of  the  Privy 
Council  Office,  and  in  the  following  year  he 
was  married.  This  introduces  the  third  and  last 


67 


period  of  his  life.  He  worked  regularly  at  his 
official  duties,  and  also  took  an  active  interest 
and  part  for  several  years  in  the  labours  of  his 
relative,  INliss  Florence  Nightingale.  Constant 
strain  of  work  broke  down  his  health,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  travel  in  the  spring  and  sum 
mer  of  1861.  In  the  course  of  this  journey  he 
caught  a  fever  which  ended  his  life  at  Florence 
at  the  age  of  forty-two. 

Such  is  the  briefest  outline  of  Clough's  life. 
Its  chief  value  is  to  bring  out  the  essential  point 
that  the  "Bothie,"  "Amours  de  Voyage," 
"Dipsychus,"  and  "Mari  Magno" — the  four 
principal  monuments  of  his  poetical  genius — 
were  all  of  them  composed  in  the  course  of  two 
short  periods  of  holiday  and  relaxation:  the 
first  three  during  the  quiet  time  which  inter- 
vened between  the  first  and  second  period  we 
have  marked,  after  he  had  broken  with  Oxford 
and  when  he  had  not  yet  engaged  in  other 
work;  the  last,  immediately  before  his  death 
and  during  his  last  journey.  The  poems 
themselves  bear  traces  of  the  scenes  and  times 
that  gave  them  birth.    The  "Bothie"  is  a  rec- 

68 


ord  of  Highland  reading  parties ;  "Amours  de 
Voyage"  is  full  of  Roman  associations;  "Dip- 
sychus"  carries  us  to  Venice;  "Mari  Magno" 
combines  the  influences  of  a  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic  with  several  touches  caught  from 
Pyrenean,  Swiss,  and  Greek  scenery.  In  so 
true  a  sense  were  Clough's  poems  the  product 
of  his  life,  and  so  clearly  were  the  powers  of  his 
genius  limited,  not  by  their  own  feebleness  or 
by  the  wasting  action  of  a  morbid  intellect,  but 
by  the  lack  of  time  and  opportunity  for  fuller 
and  more  studied  compositions.  Indeed,  we 
believe  that  none  but  those  who  judge  Clough's 
life  and  writings  by  the  lowest  standard  will 
maintain  that  his  work  was  insufficient.  On  the 
contrary,  if  we  regard  the  quality  rather  than 
the  quantity  of  literary  production,  our  feeling 
will  be  surprise  at  the  mere  amount  of  his 
poetry,  especially  if  we  reflect  upon  the  nature 
of  the  topics  which  he  handled,  the  conscien- 
tious scrupulosity  of  his  nature,  both  as  a  poet 
and  as  a  man,  and  the  various  distractions  of 
his  life.  Clough  had  nothing  of  the  self-con- 
scious artist  or  of  the  ordinary  Zi^t^ai^z^r  about 

69 


him.  His  poems  are  not  flashes  on  the  surface, 
occasional  pieces,  or  set  compositions  upon 
given  themes;  but  the  very  pith  and  marrow 
of  a  dee])ly-thinking,  deejily-feeling  soul — the 
most  heartfelt  utterances  of  one  who  sought  to 
speak  out  what  was  in  him  in  the  fewest  and  the 
simplest  words.  His  horror  of  artificial  lan- 
guage was  often  carried  to  excess.  His  hatred 
of  affectation  betrayed  him  into  baldness.  But 
one  thing  we  may  be  sure  to  find  in  him — sin- 
cerity and  sense. 

Those,  again,  who  can  divest  themselves  of 
social  and  religious  prejudices,  and  who  are 
strong  enough  to  breathe  the  fine,  rare  atmos- 
])here  of  thought  in  which  he  moved,  will 
acknowledge  that  it  was  not  he  who  was  irre- 
ligious, but  that  this  reproach  might  rather  be 
cast  on  those  of  us  who  blind  our  eyes,  and 
X)alter  with  our  conscience,  and  endeavor  to  im- 
pose our  intellectual  forms  and  fancies  upon 
God.  Clough  happened  to  live  during  a  period 
of  transition  in  the  history  of  human  thought, 
when  it  was  impossible  for  a  thinking  man  to 
avoid  problems  by  their  very  nature  irresoluble 

70 


in  one  lifetime.  Loving  truth  for  its  own  sake, 
he  laid  himself  open  with  singular  purity  and 
candour  of  mind  to  all  the  onward  moving 
forces  in  the  world  aroimd  him.  He  did  not  try- 
to  make  things  other  than  he  found  them.  He 
refused  to  tamper  with  his  conscience  for  the 
sake  of  repose  in  the  Romish,  or  of  distinction 
in  the  English  Church ;  nor  yet  was  he  inclined 
to  buy  freedom  at  the  price  of  irreligion.  Some 
natures  are  capable  of  these  courses.  Truth  is 
not  all-important  to  them;  they  acquiesce  in 
traditional  methods  of  holiness,  and  in  the  re- 
spectabilities of  time-hallowed  creeds.  But 
Clough  was  by  no  means  one  of  this  sort.  Man- 
fully and  boldly  he  admitted  all  the  difficulties 
that  occurred  to  his  mind,  faced  them,  scru- 
tinized them,  and  maintained  in  spite  of  them 
an  invincible  confidence  in  the  moral  supremacy 
of  good,  and  in  the  relation  of  his  own  soul  to 
God.  He  had  the  strength  to  cast  off  much  that 
was  dear  and  honoured  in  his  earliest  beliefs, 
and  to  fling  himself  upon  a  sea  of  anxious  ques- 
tioning. 

71 


Determined  to  be  free  and  independent,  he 
resigned  tlie  valuable  post  he  held  as  tutor  and 
fellow  of  Oriel.    And  in  all  these  things  he 
triumphed :  for  no  one  gained  a  purer  or  keener 
insight  into  the  essence,  as  distinguished  from 
the  forms,  of  religion  and  morality;  no  one 
grasped  abstract  truths  more  firmly;  no  one 
possessed  a  fuller  humanity,  or  higher  facul- 
ties of  helping  and  sympathising  with  his  fel- 
low-men.  It  was  the  reality  of  his  religion,  its 
perfect  simplicity,  its  comprehensiveness  and 
spirituality,   which   made   it  unintelligible  to 
men  of  duller  intellects  and  less  sensitively 
scrupulous  consciences.  They  required  some- 
thing more  definite  than  he  could  give  them, 
something  more  rough  and  ready,  more  fitted 
for  immediate  use.  They  did  not  care  if  part  of 
the  truth  were  sacrificed  so  long  as  they  had 
solid  dogmas  to  repose  upon,  and  comfortable 
hopes  to  cling  to.   But  Clough  dreaded  every- 
thing like  "adding  up  too  soon"  and  incomplete 
conclusions.    The  insight  which  most  men  are 
impatient  to  exercise  at  the  outset  of  life,  he 
hoped  might  possibly  be  granted  to  him  at  its 

72 


end,  or,  if  not  then,  in  after  stages  of  existence. 
The  chief  value  of  Clough's  religious 
poetry  appears  to  consist  in  this — that  he  sym- 
pathised at  a  very  early  period  with  the  move- 
ment that  is  unquestionably  going  on  towards 
the  simplification  and  purification  of  belief, 
and  that  he  gave  an  artistic  expression  to  the 
thoughts  of  earnest  seekers  and  questioners  in 
the  field  of  faith.  In  doing  so  he  did  not  inno- 
vate, or  ruthlessly  destroy,  or  sentimentally  be- 
wail the  past.  He  simply  tried  to  reduce  belief 
to  its  original  and  spiritual  purity — to  lead 
men  back  to  the  God  that  is  within  them,  wit- 
nessed by  their  consciences  and  by  the  history 
of  the  human  race.  The  primal  religious  in- 
stincts of  mankind  are  apt  in  the  course  of  cen- 
turies to  gather  round  them  metaphysical 
husks,  which  are  partly  protective  of  the  germs 
within,  and  partly  restrictive  of  their  true  vi- 
tality. Times  arrive  at  which  these  outward 
shells  are  felt  to  have  become  too  hard  and 
narrow.  They  must  then  be  broken  through 
in  order  to  free  the  kernels  that  lie  within 
them.    The  most  clear-sighted  men  at  such 

73 


periods  try  to  discriminate  between  what  is 
essential  and  what  is  unimportant  in  religion; 
but  the  majority  cling  always  to  the  human 
and  material  rubbish  with  which  it  is  clogged, 
as  if  it  were  the  very  living  and  life-giving 
divine  truth.  We  might  use  Plato's  simile,  and 
compare  the  present  condition  of  the  Christian 
faith,  as  contrasted  with  the  teaching  of  its 
great  Founder,  to  the  Glaucus  of  the  deep, 
who  rises  overgrown  with  weeds  and  shells 
from  the  ocean,  M'here  he  has  been  hidden.  To 
pull  awaj'^  these  weeds,  and  to  restore  the  god- 
like form  to  its  own  likeness,  is  the  desire  of 
all  thoughtful  men  whose  minds  have  been 
directed  to  religious  questions,  and  who  have 
not  bound  themselves  to  support  the  existing 
order  of  things,  or  undertaken  for  their  own 
interests  to  solidify  the  prejudices  of  the  mass. 
Christ  himself,  by  his  answers  to  the  questions 
of  the  Jews,  taught  us  the  principle  of  return- 
ing to  simplicity  in  religious  beliefs.  He  also, 
by  his  example,  justified  us  in  assuming  that 
the  Gospel  is  not  stationary,  but  progressive; 
that  we  may  come  to  know  more  of  God  than 

74 


we  knew  centuries  ago;  and  that  the  human 
race,  by  extending  its  intelligence,  extends  its 
spiritual  insight.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view 
that  Clough  approaches  topics  of  religious 
belief  and  Biblical  inquiry. 

"My  own  feeling,"  he  says,  "certainly  does  not  go 
along  with  Coleridge,  in  attributing  any  special  viTtue  to 
the  facts  of  the  Gospel  history.  They  have  happened,  and 
have  produced  what  we  know,  have  transfonned  the  civili- 
sation of  Greece  and  Rome  and  the  barbarism  of  Gaul  and 
Germany  into  Christendom.  But  I  cannot  feel  sure  that 
a  man  may  not  have  all  that  is  important  in  Christianity, 
even  if  he  does  not  so  much  as  know  that  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth existed.  And  I  do  not  think  that  doubts  respecting 
the  facts  related  in  the  Gospels  need  give  us  much  trouble. 
Believing  that  in  one  way  or  other  the  thing  is  of  God, 
we  shall  in  the  end  perhaps  know  in  what  way,  and  how 
far  it  was  so.  Trust  in  God's  justice  and  love,  and  belief 
in  his  commands  as  written  in  our  conscience,  stand  un- 
shaken, though  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  or  even 
St.  Paul,  were  to  fall." 

Again  he  says,  with  the  same  confidence  in 
spiritual  truth  which  is  the  essence  of  belief 
in  God: — 

"It  is  far  nobler  to  teach  people  to  do  what  is  good, 
because  it  is  good  simply,  than  for  the  sake  of  any  future 
reward.     It  is,  I  dare  say,  difficult  to  keep  up  an  equal 

75 


religious  feeling  at  present,  but  it  is  not  impoasible,  and 
is  necessary.  Besides,  if  we  die  and  come  to  nothing,  it 
does  not  therefore  follow  that  life  and  goodness  will  cease 
to  be  in  earth  and  heaven," 

This  thought  is  further  expressed  in  a  frag- 
ment of  verse : — 

"It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish.  Truth  is  so: 
That,  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Whate'er  I  do,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That,  if  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall." 

The  power  and  dignitj'-  of  this  repose  on 
what  is  great  and  good,  this  total  unselfishness 
and  confidence  in  the  Unseen,  belong  to  the 
highest  sphere  of  religious  faith.  But  it  is  not 
the  religion  of  the  emotions  so  much  as  of  the 
intellect ;  and  therefore  it  cannot  be  widely  un- 
derstood and  accepted.  When  the  hearer  is  bid- 
den to  discard  his  hopes  of  personal  reward, 
and  to  embrace  some  exalted  conception  of  the 
divine  character  more  remote  than  that  of  old 
Anthropomor])hism — when  he  is  informed  that 
neither  at  Jerusalem  nor  on  this  mountain 
must  he  worship,  and  that  his  God  is  in  reality 

76 


a  Spirit — he  begins  to  murmur  that  there  is 
nothing  left  for  him  to  live  by,  no  solid  and 
substantial  ground  to  stand  upon,  no  sufficient 
inducements  to  virtuous  action.  And  the 
preacher  of  so  abstract  and  refined  a  faith  is 
stigmatised  as  sceptical,  if  no  worse  name  be 
given  him.  Thus  Spinoza,  v/ho  by  the  most  in- 
telligent men  of  this  century  has  been  repre- 
sented as  a  God-absorbed,  if  not  a  "God-in- 
toxicated" man,  was  called  an  Atheist  for  pro- 
fessing a  theolog}^  the  essence  of  which  might 
be  summed  up  in  the  one  proposition,  that  he 
loved  God  too  much  to  want  love  back  from 
Him  again.  And  to  ordinary  minds  he  was 
Atheistical ;  for  in  their  sense  of  the  word  God 
he  had  no  God.  He  had  refined  and  abstracted 
the  idea  until  it  vanished  from  the  sphere  of 
their  intelligence. 

One  great  quality  of  Clough's  mind  in  re- 
gard to  religion  was  its  wholly  undogmatic 
character.  He  regarded  all  problems  with  im- 
partiality and  calmness.  One  of  his  MSS.  con- 
sists of  a  series  of  arguments  in  which  he  dis- 
cusses the  great  question  of  belief.    Nothing 

77 


could  better  illustrate  his  perfect  openness  of 
niind  than  this  process  of  reasoning.  It  bepfins 
by  stating  the  impossibility  that  scholars  should 
not  perceive  "the  entire  micertainty  of  history 
in  general,  and  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  in 
particular."  In  this  position  he  coincides  with 
all  the  fairest  and  profoundest  thinkers  of  the 
century.  Niebuhr,  Grote,  Sir  Cornewall  Lewis, 
Strauss,  Baur,  Renan,  have  all  in  their  own 
departments  shown  the  doubtfulness  of  early 
history,  and  have  endeavored  with  more  or  less 
success  to  sift  the  truth  from  a  mass  of  error. 
The  historian  of  Christianity  has  greater  dif- 
ficulties to  contend  with  than  the  historians  of 
Rome  or  Greece;  for  he  has  no  corroborative 
evidence  of  what  is  narrated  in  the  sacred 
books,  and  all  his  endeavours  to  bring  the  truth 
to  light  meet  with  furious  antagonism  from 
minds  wedded  to  the  old  system.  But,  contin- 
ues Clough,  it  is  equally  impossible  for  a  man 
who  has  lived  and  acted  among  men  not  to  per- 
ceive the  value  of  what  is  called  Christianity. 
The  more  he  is  convinced  of  this,  tlie  less  in- 
clined will  he  be  "to  base  it  on  those  foundations 

78 


which,  as  a  scholar,  he  feels  to  be  unstable. 
MSS.  are  doubtful,  records  may  be  unau- 
thentic, criticism  is  feeble,  historical  facts  must 
be  left  uncertain."  This  then  is  the  antithesis 
with  which  we  have  to  deal:  on  the  one  hand, 
the  history  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  in- 
volves the  greatest  amount  of  uncertainty;  on 
the  other  hand,  Christianity,  as  a  real  and  vital 
principle,  is  indispensable  to  the  world.  Mean- 
while, our  own  personal  experience  is  small  and 
limited;  our  own  powers  are  narrow,  and  not 
to  be  relied  on.  "A  sane  and  humble-minded 
man"  (concludes  Clough),  who  is  disinclined 
to  adopt  the  watchword  of  a  party  or  to  set  up 
new  views,  has  no  alternative  "but  to  throw 
himself  upon  the  great  Religious  Tradition." 
One  step  is  gained ;  but  here  another  difficulty 
presents  itself  to  the  thinker.  "I  see  not,"  he 
continues,  "how  any  upright  and  strict  dealer 
with  himself,  how  any  man,  not  merely  a  slave 
to  spiritual  appetites^  ajfections,  and  wants — 
any  man  of  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  hon- 
esty (and  without  the  former  the  latter  is  but 
a  vain  thing)  can  dare  to  affirm  that  the  nar- 

79 


rative  of  the  four  Gospels  is  an  essential  in- 
tegral part  of  that  tradition."  The  words 
which  we  have  italicised  are  peculiarly  charac- 
teristic of  Mr.  Clough.  He  was  sensitively,  al- 
most Quixotically,  afraid  of  accepting  even  a 
respectable  and  harmless  creed  for  the  sake  of 
merely  being  comfortable.  He  saw  that  in  an 
age  of  doubt  it  was  a  sort  of  self-indulgence 
to  cling  to  the  old  formulas  of  faith,  and  that, 
in  one  sense,  honest  questioning  was  less  scep- 
tical than  conscious  acquiescence.  Pursuing 
this  vein  of  reflection,  he  condemns  the  weak- 
ness of  ignoring  scientific  or  historic  doubts 
"for  the  sake  of  the  moral  guidance  and  spirit- 
ual comfort"  implied  in  submissive  belief,  or  of 
"taking  refuge  in  Romish  infallibility."  At  the 
same  time,  he  is  eager  to  deny  that  there  is 
anj'^thing  great  or  noble  or  very  needful  in 
showing  up  the  inconsistencies  of  the  New 
Testament:  "it  is  no  new  gospel  to  tell  us  that 
the  old  one  is  of  doubtful  authenticity."  But 
cannot  a  simple-minded  man  steer  between  the 
opposite  dangers  of  bragging  Scepticism  and 
Iconoclasm  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other, 

80 


of  self-indulgent  mysticism?  "I  believe  that  I 
may,  without  any  such  perversion  of  my  rea- 
son, without  any  such  mortal  sin  against  my 
own  soul,  which  is  identical  with  reason,  and 
against  the  Supreme  Giver  of  that  soul  and 
reason,  still  abide  by  the  real  Religious  Tra- 
dition." But  "where,"  he  asks,  "since  neither 
in  rationalism  nor  in  Rome  is  our  refuge,  where 
then  shall  we  seek  for  the  Religious  Tradi- 
tion?" The  answer  to  this  question  is  the 
answer  which  all  good  men  and  all  sincere 
thinkers  are  becoming  more  and  more  ready  to 
accept ;  it  is  the  answer  made  by  the  Church  in 
earlier  days;  the  answer  still  implied  in  an  old 
picture  which  represents  Aristotle  and  Plato 
among  the  Apostles  of  Pentecost: — "Every- 
where. But  above  all,"  he  adds,  "in  our  own 
work,  in  life,  in  action,  in  submission  so  far  as 
action  goes,  in  service,  in  experience,  in  pa- 
tience, and  in  confidence."  Then  follows  a 
very  significant  sentence  which  reveals  to  us 
the  seriousness  of  Clough's  mind  upon  this 
subject,  his  sense  of  its  deep  mystery,  his  per- 
suasion that  all  a  man's  life  is  too  little  in  the 


81 


search  for  God.  *'I  would  scarcely  have  any 
man  dare  to  say  that  he  has  found  it  till  that 
moment  when  death  removes  his  power  of  tell- 
ing it."  The  answer,  however,  requires  to  be 
expanded.  We  must  look  for  the  Religious 
Tradition  everywhere,  and  not  expect  to  find 
it  in  Protestantism  only,  or  in  the  Roman 
Church,  or  in  Unitarianism.  Take  the  good 
from  each  and  all.  "Whether  Christ  died  for 
us  upon  the  cross  I  cannot  tell ;  yet  I  am  pre- 
pared to  find  some  spiritual  truth  in  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement.  Purgatory  is  not  in 
the  Bible;  I  do  not  therefore  think  it  incred- 
ible." Again,  we  must  seek  it  among  clergy- 
men, religious  people,  "among  all  who  have 
really  tried  to  order  their  lives  by  a  high  stan- 
dard." Johnson,  Hume,  and  Butler,  each  in 
his  own  way,  contributes  something  to  the 
total.  Search  the  Scriptures,  but  also  search 
the  Laws  of  INIenou  and  the  Vedas,  the  Persian 
sacred  books  and  Hafiz,  Confucius,  the  Ko- 
ran, Greek  and  Roman  literature.  Homer, 
Socrates,  Plato,  I^ucretius,  Virgil,  Tacitus, 
can  tell  us  something.     This  comprehensive- 

62 


ness  and  liberality  of  soul  correspond  with  the 
true  spirit  of  Christianity,  of  Christianity 
which  is  universal  and  divine  because  it  is  truly 
human;  of  Christianity  which  speaks  ahke  to 
Jew  and  Greek,  barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  and 
free,  which  needs  no  better  evidence  than  that 
which  is  afforded  by  its  parallels  in  India, 
China,  Persia,  Greece — the  soul  of  man  in 
every  clime  and  age.  Nor  will  this  compre- 
hensive creed  render  us  less  appreciative  of 
Christianity  itself.  We  may  travel  far  and 
wide,  yet  not  become  disqualified  for  returning 
"to  what  assuredly,  prima  facie,  does  ap- 
pear to  be — not  indeed  the  religion  of  the  ma- 
jority of  mankind — but  the  religion  of  the 
best,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  in  past  history, 
and  (despite  of  professed  infidelity)  of  the 
most  enlightened  in  our  own  time."  To  cease 
to  be  Christians,  to  separate  ourselves  from  the 
pecuhar  form  of  Christianity  adopted  by  our 
forefathers,  w^ould  be  unnatural,  if  not  impos- 
sible; for  special  religions  seem  to  be  adapted 
to  special  races.  Yet  we  may  remember  that 
there  are  many  more  Buddhists  than  Chris- 

83 


tians  in  the  world,  and  not  imagine  that  on  us 
alone  God's  sun  has  shone.  Finally,  "it  is 
much  more  the  apparent  dispensation  of  things 
that  ^ye  should  gradually  widen  than  that  we 
should  narrow  and  individualize  our  creeds. 
Why  are  we  daily  coming  more  and  more  into 
communication  with  each  other,  if  it  be  not 
that  we  learn  each  other's  knowledge,  and 
combine  all  into  one?  I  feel  more  inclined  to 
put  faith  in  the  current  of  the  river  of  things 
than  because  it  runs  one  way  to  think  I  must 
therefore  pull  hard  against  it  to  go  the  other." 
But  it  is  time  to  pass  from  these  reflections 
on  the  nature  of  Religion  to  the  poems  in 
which  Clough  has  embodied  the  fervent  spirit 
of  his  creed.  Qui  laborat,  oral — is  the  title  of 
a  few  stanzas  in  which  the  poet  questions 
whether  it  be  not  profane  to  give  even  the  most 
abstract  form  to  God,  and  concludes  that  work 
is  the  truest  expression  of  earnest  prayer.  A 
similar  train  of  thought  is  carried  out  in  loftier 
language  in  another  called  "The  New  Sinai." 
After  tracing  the  gi-adual  development  of  the 
monotheistic  idea,  and  adverting  to  the  cloud 

84. 


and  darkness  which  in  modern  times  have, 
through  the  influence  of  science  on  the  one 
hand  and  superstition  on  the  other,  seemed  to 
gather  round  the  throne  of  God,  he  eloquently 
and  emphatically  expresses  his  content  to  trust 
and  wait  for  the  hour  of  God's  own  revelation. 
This  is  the  essence  of  his  religion — to  believe 
in  the  Unseen,  and  bravely  to  embrace  a  faith 
without  sight,  instead  of  forging  an  image, 
and  falling  down  to  worship  it.  A  third  poem, 
of  a  strictly  devout  character,  even  more  sol- 
enm  in  expression,  more  full  of  weighty  and 
condensed  thought,  develops  the  same  idea :  its 
first  stanza  may  be  quoted  as  an  index  to  the 
whole : — 

"O  Thou,  whose  image  in  the  shrine 
Of  human  spirits  dwells  divine; 
Which  from  that  precinct  once  conveyed 
To  be  to  outer  day  displayed, 
Doth  vanish,  part,  and  leave  behind 
Mere  blank  and  void  of  empty  mind, 
Which  vdlful  fancy  seeks  tn  vain 
With  casual  shapes  to  fill  again." 

It  is  very  difficult  for  those  who  did  not 
know  Clough  personally  to  gather  from  such 

85 


notices  as  we  can  give,  how  deep  and  fervent — 
how  absohite  and  mishaken — were  his  relig- 
.ious  convictions.  But  the  witnesses  of  his  life 
are  unanimous  in  assuring  us  that  the  princi- 
ples expressed  in  the  poems  we  have  quoted 
were  the  fixed  and  unvarying  rules  of  his  own 
conduct,  the  supporting  and  strengthening 
springs  of  his  action  in  the  world.  Contrasted 
with  these  devotional  poems  are  some  of  a 
more  anal}i;ical  character,  which,  however, 
tend  to  the  same  conclusion,  that  God,  falsely 
figured  by  the  world  to  itself  in  various  fanci- 
ful or  obsolete  shapes,  or  else  denied  with  in- 
solence and  scorn,  is  yet  supreme  and  spiritual, 
felt  by  those  who  have  preserved  an  honest  and 
untainted  soul,  and  dreaded  wqth  blind  terror 
even  by  those  who  pretend  to  disbelieve  in  him. 
Of  these,  two  songs  in  "Dipsychus,"  "I 
dreamed  a  dream,"  and  its  companion,  "There 
is  no  God  the  wicked  saith"  (published  in  the 
volume  of  collected  poems),  may  be  cited  as 
specimens.  An  ironical  tone  runs  through 
them,  and  is  strangely  blended  with  bitterness, 
gravity,  and  a  kind  of  tender  regret.     They 

86 


ought  not  to  be  separated ;  for  nothing  is  more 
true  of  Clough's  mind  than  that  it  worked  by 
thesis  and  antithesis,  not  reaching  a  clear  syn- 
thesis, but  pushing  its  convictions,  as  it  were, 
to  the  verge  of  a  conclusion.  The  poems,  for 
instance,  which  begin,  "Old  things  need  not 
be  therefore  true,"  "What  we,  when  face  to 
face  we  see,"  and  "Say  not,  the  struggle 
nought  availeth,"  are  in  their  tone  almost 
timid  and  retrogressive  when  compared  with 
"Easter  Day";  and  yet  we  feel  that  none  of 
them  contain  the  dernier  mot.  Clough  could 
take  the  world's  or  the  devil's  point  of  view 
with  wonderful  force  and  vigor.  This  is  clear 
throughout  "Dipsychus";  but  it  also  appears 
in  a  published  poem,  entitled,  "The  Latest 
Decalogue."  To  imagine  that  when  he  did  so 
he  was  expressing  his  own  view  would  be  to 
mistake  the  artist's  nature  altogether.  Yet 
some  people  are  so  dull  as  to  do  this.  They 
are  shocked  at  any  one  venturing  to  state  a 
base  or  wicked  opinion,  even  though  his  object 
be  to  call  attention  to  the  contrary,  and  by 
revealing  ugliness,  to  lead  the  eye  in  silence  to 
the  contemplation  of  beauty. 

87 


In  Clough's  works  there  are  many  stum- 
bling-blocks for  such  readers — none  greater 
than  "Easter  Day,"  a  poem  about  which  it  is 
hard  to  speak,  whether  we  regard  its  depth  of 
meaning  or  its  high  literary  excellence.  Of  the 
general  scope  of  this  poem  it  is  impossible  to 
give  a  better  account  than  that  which  is  pre- 
fixed to  it  in  the  volume  of  "Letters  and  Re- 
mains." There  it  is  styled  "a  semi-dramatic 
expression  of  the  contrast  he  (Clough)  felt 
between  the  complete  practical  irreligion  and 
wickedness  of  the  life  he  saw  going  on,  and 
the  outward  forms  and  ceremonies  of  religion 
displaying  themselves  at  every  turn.  How 
can  we  believe,  it  seems  to  say,  that  "Christ  is 
risen"  in  such  a  world  as  this?  How,  if  it  was 
so,  could  such  sin  and  such  misery  continue 
until  now?  Yet  if  we  must  give  up  this  faith, 
what  sadness  and  what  bitterness  of  disap- 
pointment remain  for  all  believers  who  thus 
lose  all  that  is  most  dear  to  them!  And  he 
abandons  himself  to  this  feeling  of  grief  and 
hopelessness,  only  still  vaguely  clinging  to  the 
belief  that  in  earth  itself  there  may  be,  if  no- 

88 


where  else,  a  new  refuge  and  a  new  answer  to 
this  sad  riddle.  The  mood  of  mind  which  he 
depicts  in  such  terrible  colours  is  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  his  own  habitual  belief.  The  poem 
is  in  no  sense  a  statement  of  facts  or  opinions, 
but  a  strong  expression  of  feeling — above  all, 
the  feeling  of  the  greatness  of  the  evil  which 
is  in  the  world."  More,  however,  remains  to 
be  said.  For  though  "Easter  Daj^"  "is  not  to 
be  regarded  as  his  own  habitual  belief,"  we 
cannot  but  consider  it  to  be  the  expression  of 
a  mind  steeped  in  the  disintegrating  solvents 
of  nineteenth-century  criticism.  The  author 
has  clearly  absorbed  everything  that  German 
commentators  have  to  say  upon  the  subject  of 
the  resurrection — nay,  more,  has,  at  least  at 
one  time  of  his  hfe,  most  keenly  felt  the  co- 
gency of  their  destructive  arguments,  and  in  a 
mood  of  bitterness  provoked  by  human  degra- 
dation has  given  the  form  of  fiery  language  to 
the  shapeless  and  uncertain  doubts  which 
crowd  the  minds  of  a  beliefless  generation. 
"Easter  Day"  is  unique  in  the  history  of  lit- 
erature.    It  is  a  poem  fully  worthy  of  that 

89 


name,  in  which  a  train  of  close  and  difficult 
reasoning  is  expressed  in  concise  words — such 
words  as  might  have  been  used  by  a  commen- 
tator on  the  Gospels,  yet  so  subtly  manipu- 
lated by  the  poet,  with  such  a  rhythm,  such 
compactness,  such  vitality  of  emotion,  as  to 
attain  the  dignity  of  art  by  mere  simplicity 
and  power. 

For  the  sake  of  those  who  may  not  have 
this  poem  in  their  hands,  we  subjoin  some  ex- 
tracts. But  it  must  be  remembered  that  quo- 
tation in  this  case  is  akin  to  mutilation,  and 
that  the  poem  itself  is  liable  to  be  misunder- 
stood in  its  incomplete  form: — 

"Through  the  great  sinful  streets  of  Naples  as  I  past, 
Wilh  fiercer  heat  than  flamed  above  my  head 
My  heart  was  hot  within  me;  till  at  last 

My  brain  was  lightened  when  my  tongue  had  said — 
Christ  is  not  risen! 
Christ  is  not  risen,  no — 
He  lies  and  moulders  low; 
Christ  is  not  risen! 
***** 

"What  if  the  women,  ere  the  dawn  was  grey, 
Saw  one  or  more  great  angels,  as  they  say 
(Angels,  or  Him  himself)  ?    Yet  neither  there,  nor  then. 
Nor  afterwards,  nor  elsewhere,  nor  at  all, 

90 


Hath  He  appeared  to  Peter  or  the  Ten; 
Nor,  save  in  thunderous  terror,  to  blind  Saul; 
Save  in  an  after  Gospel  and  late  Creed, 
He  is  not  risen,  indeed — 
Christ  is  not  risen! 

«  *  4=  *  « 

"Is  He  not  risen,  and  shall  we  not  rise? 

Oh,  we  unwise! 
What  did  we  dream,  what  wake  we  to  discover? 
Ye  hills,  fall  on  us,  and  ye  mountains,  cover! 

In  darkness  and  great  gloom 
Come  ere  we  thought  it  is  our  day  of  doom; 
From  the  cursed  world,  which  is  one  tomb, 

Christ  is  not  risen! 

"EJat,  drink,  and  play,  and  think  that  this  is  bliss: 
There  is  no  heaven  but  this; 

There  Is  no  hell. 
Save  earth,  which  serves  the  purpose  doubly  well, 

Seeing  it  visits  still 
With  equallest  apportionments  of  ill 
Both  good  and  bad  alike,  and  brings  to  one  same  dust 

The  unjust  and  the  just 

With  Christ,  who  is  not  risen. 

"Eat,  drink,  and  die,  for  we  are  souls  bereaved: 
Of  all  the  creatures  under  heaven's  wide  cope 
We  are  most  hopeless,  who  had  once  most  hope, 
And  most  beliefless,  that  had  most  believed. 
Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust; 
As  of  the  unjust,  also  of  the  just — 
Yea,  of  that  Just  One  too! 
It  is  the  one  sad  Gospel  that  is  true — 
Christ  is  not  risen! 


91 


"Weep  not  beside  the  tomb, 
Ye  women,  unto  whom 
He  was  great  solace  while  ye  tended  Him; 
Ye  who  with  napkin  o'er  the  head 

And  folds  of  linen  round  each  wounded  limb 

Laid  out  the  Sacred  Dead; 
And  thou  that  bar'st  Him  in  thy  wondering  womb; 
Yea,  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  depart, 
Bind  up  as  best  ye  may  your  own  sad  bleeding  heart: 
Go  to  your  homes,  your  living  children  tend, 

Your  earthly  spouses  love; 

Set  your  affections  not  on  things  above, 
Which  moth  and  rust  corrupt,  which  quickliest  come  to 

end: 
Or  pray,  if  pray  ye  must,  and  pray,  if  pray  ye  can. 
For  death;  since  dead  is  He  whom  he  deemed  more  than 
man. 

Who  is  not  risen:  no, — 

But  lies  and  moulders  low, — 
Who  is  not  risen! 


'And,  oh,  good  men  of  ages  yet  to  be, 
Who  shall  believe  because  ye  did  not  see — 

Oh,  be  ye  warned,  be  wise! 

No  more  with  pleading  eyes. 

And  sobs  of  strong  desire. 

Unto  the  empty  vacant  void  aspire, 
Seeking  another  and  impossible  birth 
That  is  not  of  your  own,  and  only  mother  earth. 
But  if  there  is  no  other  life  for  you. 
Sit  down  and  be  content,  since  this  must  even  do: 

He  is  not  risen!" 


92 


It  must  not  be  thought  that  religious  prob- 
lems are  the  only  ones  which  occupied  the 
mind  of  Mr.  Clough.  On  the  contrary,  what- 
ever is  important  in  the  life  of  man  attracted 
his  eager  thought,  and  received  from  him  the 
same  minute  and  scrupulous  consideration. 
His  large  humanity  was  one  of  his  most  promi- 
nent qualities;  nor  was  there  anything  of  real 
or  of  serious  significance,  however  painful,  in 
the  world  from  which  he  shrank.  Two  princi- 
pal topics  beside  that  of  religion  seem  to  have 
been  always  present  to  his  mind.  One  of  these 
was  the  question  of  love,  the  other  of  action, 
or  of  work  in  life.  We  shall  now  proceed  to 
consider  his  poetical  treatment  of  both  of 
these  points,  which,  together  v^nih  religion, 
form  the  most  important  subjects  that  a  poet 
can  approach. 

Passing  from  Clough's  religious  poems  to 
those  in  which  he  has  dealt  in  detail  with  the 
problems  of  human  life  and  love,  we  may 
make  the  preliminary  remark  that  here,  as  in 
his  more  abstract  compositions,  he  is  manly 
and  clairvoyant — unflinching — affecting  noth- 

93 


ing,  and  avoiding  notbirig  ^vhi(•h  he  sees  to  be 
true  and  weighty  in  the  facts  ])rcscnted  to  his 
notice.  Though  minutely  analytical — as,  for 
instance,  in  "Dipsychus"  and  some  parts  of 
"Amours  de  Voyage" — he  is  never  morbidly 
so.  AVe  feel  his  personality  as  we  do  that  of 
all  true  and  sincere  poets;  and  perhaps  these 
poems  are  a  better  record  of  that  personality 
than  any  memoirs  which  could  possibly  be 
written.  But  there  is  nothing  self-conscious 
or  unhealthily  introspective  in  this  revelation  of 
himself.  What  strikes  us  in  these  poems  of 
the  second  class  is  their  perfect  sincerity  and 
truth  to  life.  They  are  like  pictures  painted 
from  natural  objects  in  the  fair  light  of  day — 
no  Fuseli  or  Blake  translations  from  a  world 
of  spirits  and  of  murky  gloom.  Nor  is  this 
impression  altered  where  the  remote  and  un- 
common nature  of  his  subject  obliges  him  to 
have  recourse  to  psychological  anatomy.  We 
find  no  "supreme  moments,"  no  passionate 
and  fiery  experiences  in  which  life  is  lost  as  in 
a  furnace  glow,  either  in  his  philosophy  or  his 
art.     He  yields,  indeed,  its  full  part  to  pas- 

94 


sion,  but  a  far  larger  part  to  law — the  law  of 
conscience  and  humanity.  The  pathos  that  he 
stirs  is  of  no  maudlin  or  sentimental  kind,  but 
is  purely  natural  and  sincere — gushing,  as  in 
the  last  story  of  Mari  Magno,  from  the  flinty 
rock  of  fact  and  dire  necessity.  In  this  re- 
spect he  is  a  kind  of  better  Crabbe;  more  full 
of  natural  tenderness  and  fine  distinctions,  if 
less  sternly  powerful  and  less  deeply  tragic. 

But  if  Clough  has  nothing  in  common  with 
poets  of  the  De  Musset  type,  he  is  equally  far 
removed  from  the  trivial  domesticities  of  the 
"Angel  in  the  House."  Clough  was  not,  in- 
deed, a  misogynist  or  indifferent  to  marriage. 
On  the  contrary,  a  gi-eat  number  of  his  poems 
prove  that  the  problems  of  married  love  and 
life  were  among  those  which  most  deeply  occu- 
pied his  mind.  But  he  did  not  shut  his  eyes 
and  dream  that  the  Englishman's  paradise  of 
a  clean  hearth  and  a  kind  wife  is  the  only  ob- 
ject of  existence,  or,  that  if  it  were,  it  would 
be  easy  to  obtain  entrance  into  it.  The  patient 
insight,  refusing  to  be  deceived  by  any  illu- 
sion, however  sweet,  in  its  unwavering  cour- 

95 


age,  which  we  have  traced  in  his  treatment  of 
religion,  appears  no  less  in  his  treatment  of 
love.  He  is  able  to  see  men  and  women  as 
they  are,  very  imperfect  in  their  affections, 
often  too  weak  even  to  love  without  an  arricre 
pensee,  letting  priceless  opportunity  slip  by, 
and  killing  the  flower  of  one  part  of  their  na- 
ture by  the  drought  and  dryness  of  the  other 
part. 

In  attempting  to  illustrate  these  general 
remarks  by  an  analysis  of  Clough's  poems,  we 
might  begin  with  a  notice  of  the  tales  called 
"Mari  Magno,"  the  last  of  his  works,  and 
therefore  in  some  ways  the  ripest  product  of 
his  mind.  But  these  tales  are  already  in 
extenso  before  the  public,  and  are  so  likely  to 
be  the  most  popular  portion  of  his  works,  that 
we  may  perhaps  content  ourselves  with  refer- 
ence to  them.  The  first  two  are  very  specu- 
lative. Their  moral  seems  to  be  that  love  is 
fellow-service,  and  that  the  a  peu  pres  of  hu- 
man relations  must  be  accepted  cheerfully. 
To  follow  the  absolute,  and  to  expect  to  real- 
ize an  ideal,  is  vain.    Let  life  school  us  to  love 


90 


as  men,  with  the  whole  force,  indeed,  of  our 
natures,  but  with  no  fantastic  yearnings  after 
impossibihties.  If  we  fail  to  learn  these  les- 
sons, and  refuse  the  natm-al  good  of  human 
life,  we  shall  be  disciplined  with  disaj)point- 
ment.  The  thought  of  these  two  poems  is  so 
subtle — so  delicately  shadowed  forth  and  il- 
luminated with  cross  lights — that  in  order  to 
present  a  faithful  picture  of  them,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  transcribe  the  tales  themselves. 
The  rest  are  more  simple.  They  have  less  of 
speculation  and  more  of  incident  and  human 
pathos.  Indeed,  the  story  called  "Christian," 
or  the  Lawyer's  Second  Tale,  is  one  of  the 
most  dramatic  poems  of  its  kind  in  the  English 
language.  When  we  remember  that  this  story 
was  actually  completed  during  Clough's  last 
hours,  while  paralysis  was  rapidly  invading 
the  very  stronghold  of  life,  it  forms  the  most 
convincing  proof  of  the  genuine  and  ii-resist- 
ible  force  of  his  poetic  genius. 

"Amours  de  Voyage"  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
highly  finished,  various,  and  artistically  com- 
plete of  all  his  works.    It  consists  of  a  series  of 

97 


letters  supposed  to  he  written  from  Rome  by 
an  Englishman  called  Claude,  and  two  sisters 
of  a  family  of  Trevelljms  w^hose  acquaintance 
he  made  there.  It  was  composed  by  Clough 
at  Rome  in  1848,  during  the  short  life  of  Maz- 
zini's  Republic  and  the  French  siege.  The 
chief  incidents  of  this  stirring  time  are  so 
^vrought  into  the  narrative  part  of  the  poem  as 
to  contrast  in  a  strikinsc  manner  with  the  Ham- 
let-like  indecision  of  the  hero's  character.  ''II 
doutait  de  tout,  meme  de  I'amour"  is  one  of 
the  mottoes  on  the  title-page ;  and  the  last  two 
couplets  of  the  "Envoy"  well  describe  the  pe- 
culiar contrast  which  runs  through  the  whole 
work : — 

"Say,  'I  am  flitting  about  many  years  from  brain  unto 

brain  of 
Feeble  and  restless  youths  born  to  inglorious  days; 
But,'  so  finish  the  word,  'I  was  writ  in  a  Roman  chamber, 
When  from  Janiculan  heights  thundered  the  cannon  of 

France.' " 

"Amours  de  Voyage"  has  three  distinct 
subjects:  the  criticism  of  Rome  from  a  travel- 
ler's point  of  vieM%  involving  many  religious 
and    ffisthetical   reflections;    politics    and    the 

98 


events  of  the  siege;  and  the  love-story  of  an 
over-refined  and  irresolute  spirit.  The  two 
former  topics  are  gradually  merged  in  the  last. 
Indeed,  they  serve  chiefly  to  enliven  the  poem, 
and  to  illustrate  the  character  of  the  sceptical 
hero  and  his  ladylike  inamorata.  Clough  has 
managed  with  great  delicacy  to  introduce  the 
theme  of  love,  at  first  quite  incidentally,  into 
Claude's  letters,  and  to  let  it  grow  by  degrees 
until  it  swallows  up  the  others,  and  forms  the 
whole  subject  of  the  poem.  But  it  must  not  be 
imagined  that  the  love-story  is  the  only  im- 
portant part  of  "Amours  de  Voyage."  On 
the  contrary,  there  is  a  singular  richness  in  the 
woof  and  texture  of  this  poem,  a  variety  which 
we  miss  in  compositions  like  "Werther,"  or 
"Maud."  The  descriptions  of  character  are 
humorous  and  racy.  Very  delicate  satire,  for 
instance,  adds  an  interest  to  Miss  Georgina's 
letters;  and  the  whole  Trevellyn  family  is  hit 
off  with  dramatic  nicety.  Claude  himself  ap- 
pears before  us  as  a  many-sided  man,  and  we 
get  a  good  notion  of  his  personality  long  be- 
fore his  love-drama  begins. 

99 


Claude  is  a  young  English  gentleman,  well 
born  and  well  connected,  but  naturally  shy  and 
rather  satirical.  His  education  has  rendered 
him  fastidious;  and  he  is  by  temperament  in- 
clined to  dream  and  meditate  and  question 
rather  than  to  act.  We  soon  find  that  he  has 
the  trick  of  introspection,  and  of  nineteenth- 
century  yearning  after  the  impossible.  It  is 
curious  that  in  his  delineation  of  this  state  of 
mind  Clough  should  remind  us  of  Alfred  de 
JMusset — his  antipodes  in  moral  tone  and  men- 
tal calibre.  Yet  it  is  so.  Both  poets  describe 
the  maladie  du  siecle — the  nondescript  ca- 
chexy, in  which  aspiration  mingles  with  disen- 
chantment, satire  and  scepticism  with  a  child- 
like desire  for  the  tranquility  of  reverence  and 
belief — in  which  self-analysis  has  been  pushed 
to  the  verge  of  monomania,  and  all  springs  of 
action  are  clogged  and  impeded  by  the  cob- 
webs of  speculation.  But  while  De  Musset 
presents  us  with  a  French  picture  of  this  con- 
dition, very  feeble,  sickly,  and  disagreeable, 
Clough  is  true  to  the  national  vigour  of  the 
English  character.     We  cannot  mistake  the 

100 


irony  with  which  he  treats  Claude,  or  fall  into 
the  error  of  identifying  him  with  the  poet. 

Claude's  first  letters  are  devoted  to  the  im- 
pressions produced  on  his  mind  by  Rome. 
"Rubbishy"  is  the  best  word  he  can  find  to  ex- 
press the  Eternal  City :  indeed,  it  resembles  its 
own  Monte  Testaceo,  a  "mass  of  broken  and 
castaway  wine-pots."  In  the  midst  of  such 
grumblings  a  hint  is  dropped  of  a  family  called 
Trevellyn,  who,  a  letter  further  on,  are  thus 
cleverly  described: — 


"Middle-class  people  these,  bankers  very  likely,  not  wholly 

Pure  of  the  taint  of  the  shop;  will  at  table-d'hote  and 
restaurant 

Have  their  shilling's  worth,  their  penny's  pennyworth 
even: 

Neither  man's  aristocracy  this,  nor  God's,  God  knoweth! 

Yet  they  are  fairly  descended,  they  give  you  to  know, 
well  connected; 

Doubtless  somewhere,  in  some  neighbourhood  have,  and 
are  careful  to  keep,  some 

Threadbare  genteel  relations,  who  in  their  turn  are  en- 
chanted 

Grandly  among  country-people  to  introduce  at  assemblies 

To  the  unpennied  cadets  our  cousins  with  excellent  for- 
tunes. 

Neither  man's  aristocracy  this,  nor  God's,  God  knoweth!" 

101 


Meantime  Claude  begins  to  make  way  with 
these  Trevellyns.  He  owns  it  is  pleasant  to  be 
with  them.  His  aristocratic  refinement  and 
fastidious  tastes  are  even  shocked  at  finding 
that  he  delights  in  "pleasing  inferior  people." 
But,  after  all,  it  is  only  a  matter  of  accident 
and  travelling  sociability,  of — 

"Juxtaposition,  in  short;  and  what  is  juxtaposition?" 

This  supplies  him  with  much  food  for  very 
Cloughian  contemplation.  Meantime,  a  few 
scraps  from  the  JNIiss  Trevellyns  to  their 
friends  introduce  us  to  these  young  ladies,  and 
let  us  know  that  Mary  thinks  Mr.  Claude  "a 
superior  man,"  but  "terribly  selfish";  and  so 
the  first  canto  ends.  The  second  opens  with 
Italian  politics.  Claude  sympathises  with  the 
patriots  more  than  he  chooses  to  admit,  or 
than  his  habits  of  disdainful  self-analysis  per- 
mit him  to  be  aware  of.  Once  or  twice  he 
flashes  into  real  enthusiasm;  but  he  never  gives 
himself  a  free  rein.  In  the  midst  of  details 
about  the  siege,  and  of  wonderings  whether  he 
would  be  prepared  in  the  event  of  danger  "to 

102 


lay  down  his  life  for  the  British  female,"  he 
exclaims:  "I  am  in  love,  meantime,  you 
think?"  and  after,  for  the  space  of  ten  lines, 
articulating  the  charms  of  Mary's  feminine 
good  taste  and  sense,  decides  that  he  "is  not 
exactly."  Then  follows  letter  after  letter 
about  love.  Claude  is  clearly  getting  into  the 
thick  of  it — summoning  to  his  aid  all  his  heavy 
casuistical  battalions  and  squadi'ons  of  light 
sophistry.  The  real  misery  of  a  state  of  mind 
like  Claude's  is,  that  it  produces  a  confusion 
in  the  moral  instincts;  the  higher,  as  w^ell  as 
the  lower  parts  of  the  nature,  become  objects 
of  dread  and  suspicion.  Claude  fears  sophis- 
tication in  every  virtue,  and  is  nervously 
alarmed  by  his  own  impulses.  It  may  easily 
be  conceived  that  he  puzzles  the  Trevellyns  not 
a  little.  Georgina  thinks  Mr.  Claude  "really 
is  too  shilly-shally,"  and  induces  her  own  fiance 
to  sound  him  with  regard  to  his  intentions  as 
to  her  sister  Mary.  The  third  canto  opens  with 
a  series  of  similar  reflections,  for  Claude  is  now 
in  the  very  centre  of  indifference,  having  cast 
off  the  No,  and  not  yet  reached  the  Yes  of 

loving. 

103 


Then  he  takes  up  a  question  which  he  had 
suggested  at  an  earlier  period.  "What  is  Jux- 
taposition?" We  travel  in  a  railway-train, 
and,  to  pass  the  time,  talk  with  the  girl  we  find 
next  to  us.  This  is  a  true  allegory  of  most 
marriages.  Yet  we  prate  at  the  same  time 
about  "eternal  ties  and  marriages  made  in 
heaven."  But  if  we  rcalUj  believed  in  this  pre- 
tence— if  the  bridegroom  really  thought  he 
was  linked  for  ever  to  the  bride — if  he  did  not 
foresee  the  release  of  bm;ial  while  he  signed 
the  bond  of  matrimony — how  do  you  think  he 
would  then  accept  his  situation?  Claude's 
friend  seems  to  hint  that  Juxtaposition  may 
be  great,  but  that  Affinity  is  greater.  "Ah  I" 
says  Claude,  "there  are  many  affinities  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  and  forces: — 

"But  none,  let  me  tell  you, 
Save  by  the  law  of  the  land  and  the  ruinous  force  of 

the  will,  ah, 
None,  I  fear  me,  at  last  quite  sure  to  be  final  and 

perfect." 

Yet,  he  sighs,  it  is  pleasant  to  be  deluded,  and 
the  love-makings  of  the  earth  are  very  beauti- 
ful:— 


104 


"Could  we  eliminate  only 
This  vile  hungering  impulse,  this  demon  within  us  of 

craving, 
Life  were  beatitude,  living  a  perfect  divine  satisfac- 
tion." N 

But  soon  another  word,  more  abrupt  than 
Affinity,  more  cogent  than  Juxtaposition, 
breaks  the  serene  sphere  of  his  dubitations  like 
a  bombshell.  It  is  Obligation.  His  intentions 
are  asked.  Mary,  indeed,  has  herself  never 
held  him  bound  in  any  way;  and  this  is  one  of 
her  charms  in  his  eyes.  Every  morning  he 
may  meet  her  afresh,  and  find  no  old  debts  to 
pay.  But  just  as  Claude  is  on  the  eve  of 
starting  for  Florence  with  the  Trevellyns  and 
their  Vernon  friends,  one  of  the  latter  hints 
that  he  ought  to  declare  himself  one  way  or  the 
other.  Thereupon  Claude  breaks  loose,  and 
excuses  himself  from  the  party: — 

"How  could  I  go?     Great  heavens!  to  conduct  a  per- 
mitted flirtation 
Under    those    vulgar    eyes,    the    observed    of    such 
observers." 

This  brings  us  to  the  fourth  canto,  when 
Claude,  having  let  his  opportunity  slip,  and 

105 


missed,  as  he  expresses  it,  the  tide  in  his  love 
affairs,  feels  an  irresistible  desire  to  be  again, 
at  any  cost,  with  Mary  Trevellyn.  He  leaves 
Rome;  but  they  have  left  Florence, — for 
Milan,  it  appears.  Then  follows  a  weary  chase 
after  them,  through  Bellagio,  over  the  Splii- 
gen,  the  Stelvio;  back  again  to  Como,  Flor- 
ence, Pisa,  and  Rome.  Every  place  is 
searched;  everj^  friend  applied  to.  But  by  a 
natural  accident  of  travelling,  when  once 
missed,  they  cannot  be  caught  up  again.  The 
whole  of  this  fifth  canto  is  occupied  with  hur- 
ryings  to  and  fro,  blank  researches,  and  vain 
self-reproaches.  There  is  something  piteous 
and  pathetic  in  its  feverishness.  JMary  Trevel- 
Ij^n,  in  the  meantime,  is  at  Lucerne,  waiting, 
not  without  anxiet}^  for  Claude,  and  ready,  it 
is  clear,  to  make  him  happy.  Indeed,  we  feel 
that  it  is  very  stupid  on  the  part  of  Claude  to 
give  her  up  after  so  short  a  pursuit.  He  is 
meant,  however,  to  be  a  poor  creature,  dis- 
tracted by  his  own  waywardness  of  specula- 
tion, and  confused  in  his  impulses.  "Amours 
de  Voyage"  concludes  with  a  series  of  those 

106 


dubiations,  halts,  and  turning-points  of 
thought,  in  which  Clough  delighted  as  an  ar- 
tist, and  which  serve,  with  admirable  irony  and 
humour,  to  pourtray  the  feebleness  of  Claude. 
We  have  entered  so  fully  into  the  analysis 
of  this  poem  that  there  is  little  need  for  com- 
ment. Yet  we  cannot  refrain  from  calling  at- 
tention to  its  subtle  discussion  of  a  subject 
w^hich  to  most  men  is  so  simple.  Clough  shows  us 
in  the  character  of  Claude  the  effect  of  a  specu- 
lative intellect  acting  upon  the  instincts  and  af- 
fections. We  can  scarcely  wonder  that  Clough 
is  not  more  generally  read  and  admired,  be- 
cause the  problems  with  which  he  is  occupied 
are  rare  and  remote.  There  are  but  few  char- 
acters like  Claude  in  the  world.  Indeed,  it 
might  be  wondered,  whether  it  is  worth  while 
commemorating  those  perplexed  and  sceptical 
conditions  of  the  consciousness  in  verse.  Ought 
a  poet  not  rather  to  lead  the  world,  and  to 
show  the  ultimate  truth,  than  to  represent  the 
waverings  of  a  discontented  spirit  ill  at  ease? 
Clough's  vindication,  however,  lies  in  this: 
first,  that  it  is  the  poet's  function  to  hold  up  a 

lOT 


mirror  to  his  age,  as  well  as  to  lead  it;  and 
secondly,  that  we  still  admire  Hamlet  and 
Faust.  Claude  belongs  to  the  same  race  as 
these  princes  of  metaphysical  perplexity. 
However  exceptional,  his  scepticism  is  natural 
to  himself,  and  to  the  temper  of  his  century. 
In  painting  him,  Clough  reproduced  the  ex- 
perience which  he  obtained  from  commerce 
with  the  world,  and  drew  a  picture  of  his 
times. 

Omitting  all  notice  of  the  "Bothie,"  the 
best  known  of  Clough's  works,  we  may  now 
proceed  to  discuss  "Dipsychus,"  a  dramatic 
composition  w^hich  has  not  yet  been  given  to 
the  public.  This  fact,  besides  the  intrinsic  im- 
portance of  the  poem,  which  contains  in  the 
most  condensed  form,  all  Clough's  speculations 
about  life  and  action,  must  be  our  excuse  for 
the  length  of  the  extracts  we  propose  to  make, 
and  for  the  minuteness  of  our  analysis.  Hith- 
erto we  have  seen  him  occupied  with  the  prob- 
lems of  Religion  and  Love.  Having  shown 
us  the  corrosive  action  of  the  human  intellect 
in  both  of  these  fields  he  comes  forward  to  dis- 


108 


play  the  further  operation  of  this  sceptical 
aqua  fortis  upon  the  philsophy  of  Life  itself  in 
Dipsychus.  The  hero  of  this  poem  is  not,  like 
Hamlet,  indisposed  to  fulfil  a  single  and  diffi- 
cult duty;  or,  like  Faust,  exhausted  with  the 
world  of  thought;  or,  like  Claude,  unnerved 
for  decision  and  unable  to  obej^  his  instincts. 
His  difficulties  are  deeper,  and  more  general. 
He  passes  in  review  the  whole  casuistry  of 
Life,  and  Duty,  and  Action,  involving  re- 
ligion, love,  and  morality,  in  his  speculation. 
The  theme  of  the  poem  is  therefore,  in  some 
sense,  the  metaphysic  or  supreme  abstraction 
of  Human  Doubt. 

It  was  written  at  a  period  of  the  poet's  life 
when  he  was  thinking  and  feeling  deeply  about 
the  choice  of  work.  Oxford  had  been  given 
up.  University  Hall,  in  London,  had  not 
proved  very  satisfactory.  Clough  felt  the  need 
of  action,  without  confidence  in  any  special 
sort  of  action.  Subtle  analysis  and  high 
aspirations  seemed  to  unfit  him  for  the  coarser 
work  of  the  world.  Mere  pleasure  or  the  lux- 
ury of  living  or  domestic  felicity  could  not  sat- 

109 


isfy  the  whole  of  such  a  nature.  He  asked 
himself,  What  is  to  be  done?  What  is  the 
value  of  anj^  work  that  a  man  can  do?  How 
shall  we  preserve  the  soul's  virginity  upon  the 
crowded  highways  of  the  world?  Is  it  worth 
while  to  sacrifice  beautiful  illusions  for  doubt- 
ful truths  of  fact?  Is  it  right  to  exchange  the 
poet's  golden  sunset  skies  for  the  world's  pal- 
pable coin — itself  the  root  of  all  evil  as  well 
as  of  all  comfort? 

These  meditations  are  cast  in  the  mould  of 
a  dialogue  between  a  man's  soul  and  a  spirit. 
But  the  title  "Dipsychus"  seems  to  intimate 
that  the  spirit  is  but  a  mode  of  the  soul  which 
externalises  itself.  Or,  to  speak  more  clearly, 
this  spirit  is  not  the  true  man,  but  it  is  that 
second  self  which  usage  with  the  world  and  the 
unnumbered  centuries  of  human  tradition  have 
imposed  upon  the  soul.  Clough  calls  him 
Mephistopheles  and  Belial.  He  is  made  to 
name  himself  Cosmarchon  or  Cosmocrator: — 

"This  worldly  fiend  that  follows  you  about, 
This  compound  of  convention  and  impiety, 
This  mongrel  of  uncleanness  and  propriety." 

110 


He  is  in  truth  the  spirit  of  this  world,  the  spirit 
of  fact  and  reality,  as  opposed  to  aspirations 
and  ideals,  the  spirit  of  those  conditions  under 
which  men  have  to  labour  in  their  commerce 
with  the  world ;  the  spirit  of  those  lower  neces- 
sities which  environ  action.  Reflection,  it  was 
long  ago  said  by  the  philosophers,  belongs  to 
God  and  to  godlike  men.  But  action  is  proper 
to  mankind  and  to  the  mass  of  human  beings. 
By  cleaving  to  action  we  renounce  our  heav- 
enly birthright  of  contemplation.  Yet  if  we 
confine  ourselves  to  reflection  and  aspiration, 
we  separate  ourselves  from  the  life  of  men.  No 
one  has  yet  solved  the  problem  of  acting  with- 
out contracting  some  stain  of  earth. 

The  form  of  Dipsjxhus  and  the  character 
of  the  Spirit  remind  us  of  Faust,  and  prove 
that  Clough  was  to  a  certain  extent  influenced 
by  Goethe's  great  work.  But  the  problems 
agitated  by  Clough  are  of  a  more  subtle  and 
spiritual  nature  than  those  which  Goethe 
raised.  They  are  worked  out  with  less  atten- 
tion to  artistic  finish  and  dramatic  effect  than 
the  speculations  which  underly  the  play  of 

111 


*'Faust."  In  their  narrow  compass  they  strike 
many  students  as  being  more  forcible  in 
thought  and  more  full  of  feeling  than  the  medi- 
tative scenes  of  Goethe's  drama.  Clough  was 
content  to  be  wholly  undramatic  and  monoton- 
ous. Instead  of  presenting  us  with  numerous 
highly-coloured  pictures,  he  dissected  a  por- 
tion of  the  troubled  brain  of  one  man  with 
marvellous  skill  and  delicacy.  Thus  the  two 
works  are  essentially  different  in  their  scope 
and  aim;  and  the  resemblance  between  them  is 
superficial.  Besides,  the  Spirit  in  "Dipsy- 
chus"  has  not  much  in  common  with  the 
Mephistopheles  of  Goethe.  We  find  in 
"Dipsychus"  no  tempter  beyond  the  casuist 
that  everyone  carries  in  his  bosom ;  no  contract 
but  that  which  everyone  makes  when  he  leaves 
the  Thebaid  of  his  contemplation  for  the  serv- 
ice and  the  pay  of  the  great  world ;  no  greater 
duality  of  existence  than  that  which  every  self- 
conscious  man  of  the  century  contains  within 
his  own  nature.  The  dialogues  of  Dipsychus 
and  the  Spirit  are  the  communings  of  a  heart 
given  to  self-examination.     Their  strife  is  a 

112 


modern  version  of  the  old  battle  carried  on 
between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh,  or  rather  be- 
tween St.  Paul's  Pneumatic  and  Psychic, 
spiritual  and  natural,  man.  But  the  strife  is 
even,  and  no  Zeus  holds  the  balance.  The  com- 
batants are  twins,  inseparable  in  this  life.  The 
one  that  is  the  stronger,  though  confessedly 
the  viler,  rules  the  other,  because  he  conformed 
to  the  existing  conditions  under  which  the  in- 
dividual is  forced  to  live  and  act.  The  fate  of 
the  forlorn,  indignant,  and  defrauded  soul  is 
hidden  from  us  at  the  end.  Dipsychus  seeks 
to  act  as  a  man,  and  not  to  keep  aloof  from 
human  passions  and  the  pains  of  life;  but  in 
doing  so  he  falls,  and  is  entangled  in  the  snares 
of  the  world.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  Clough  in- 
tended his  drama  to  conclude.  The  second 
part  of  "Dipsychus,"  as  we  have  it,  is  incom- 
plete. But  so  far  as  one  can  judge  from  this 
fragment,  one  is  surprised  at  the  common- 
place and  rather  vulgar  denouement  which  the 
poet  seems  to  have  designed.  It  contrasts  so 
strangely  with  the  elevated  and  subtle  tone  of 
the  first  part,  and  forms  so  distinct  a  bathos 

113 


or  anti-climax,  that  we  ^re  disj)osefl  to  aban- 
don any  attem])t  at  its  inter])retation,  believ- 
ing that  in  its  present  mutilated  state  it  cannot 
be  fairly  criticised,  and  to  confine  our  atten- 
tion to  the  first  part.  This  part  consists  of  a 
series  of  short  scenes,  which  fall  naturally  into 
two  chief  groups.  In  the  first  of  these  groups 
Dipsychus  and  the  Spirit  discuss  several  ques- 
tions of  theology  and  social  ethics,  setting  forth 
in  broad  and  well-defined  contrast  the  double 
point  of  view  which  may  be  taken  by  a  scrupu- 
lous and  an  easy  conscience;  the  discord  be- 
tween the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  and  the  spirit  of 
the  world ;  and  the  divergence  between  a  crav- 
ing after  spiritual  things  and  an  acquiescence 
in  the  order  of  carnal  and  conventional  rou- 
tine. The  second  group  is  devoted  exclusively 
to  the  casuistry  of  action. 

"Dipsychus"  opens  at  Venice,  with  a  remi- 
niscence of  "Easter  Day."  Though  the  scene 
is  changed,  and  months  have  passed,  the  old 
refrain  of  "Christ  is  not  risen,"  keeps  running 
in  the  poet's  head.  The  Resurrection,  in  any 
real  and  modern  sense  of  the  word,  is  just  as 

114 


inconceivable  at  Venice  as  at  Naples.  The 
spirit  of  Christianity  is  just  as  absent  from  the 
Rialto  as  from  the  Toledo.  While  Dipsychiis 
is  repeating  the  opening  lines  of  "Easter 
Day,"  the  Spirit  intervenes  and  begins  to  criti- 
cise it; — 

"Dear,  how  odd! 
He'll  tell  us  next  there  is  no  God. 
I  thought  'twas  in  the  Bible  plain, 
On  the  third  day  He  rose  again." 

The  Spirit  accepts  all  that  the  world  has 
agreed  to  believe — all  the  ouoXoyovfitva  and 
stereotyped  conventions  of  his  Chiu'ch  and 
State.  Theology  and  metaphysics,  indeed,  are 
not  his  trade.  But  he  recommends  general  re- 
ligious observances  as  a  matter  of  prudential 
policy,  and  occupies  a  pew  on  Sundays  in 
obedience  to  the  third  commandment  of  his  own 
amended  Decalogue: — 

"Oh, 

You'll  go  to  church,  of  course,  you  know; 
Or,  at  the  least,  will  take  a  pew 
To  send  your  wives  and  servants  to. 
Trust  me,  I  make  a  point  of  that; 
No  infidelity,— that's  flat." 

115 


On  the  j)resent  occasion  at  Venice,  however, 

he  prefers  to  enjoy  the  sun,  and  watch  the 

humours  of  the  crowd  on  the  Piazza.    Dipsy- 

chus  converses  with  him,  sullenly  enough,  and 

they  carry  on  their  dialogue  through  a  visit  to 

the  Public  Gardens,  where  the  higher  musings 

of  the  man  are  constantly  broken  with  ever  so 

slight  a  revelation  of  the  spirit's  carnal  nature. 

Dipsychus  is  disgusted,  and  exclaims: — 

"O  moon  and  stars,  forgive!  and  thou,  clear  heaven, 
Look  pureness  back  into  me.    Oh,  great  God! 
Why,  why,  in  wisdom  and  in  grace's  name. 
And  in  the  name  of  saints  and  saintly  thoughts, 
Of  mothers,  and  of  sisters,  and  chaste  wives, 
And  angel  woman-faces  we  have  seen. 
And  angel  woman-spirits  we  have  guessed, 
And  innocent  sweet  children,  and  pure  love, 
V/hy  did  I  ever  one  brief  moment's  space 
But  parley  with  this  filthy  Belial? 
Was  it  the  fear 

Of  being  behind  the  world,  which  is  the  wicked?" 

But  when  he  has  regained  his  hotel,  the  Spirit 
begins  once  more  to  reason  with  him  on  the 
duties  of  society,  and  the  necessities  of  acquies- 
cence in  the  ways  of  the  world.  Social  con- 
ventions are  discussed;  Dipsychus  fretting 
against  formal  lies  and  diplomac}'  of  manners 

116 


and  outward  show,  the  Spirit  proving  how  wise 
it  is  to  leaven  our  sincerity  with  tact,  our  purity 
with  savoir  faire,  the  dove  with  the  serpent, 
piety  with  pohsh.  His  final  argument  on  all 
these  points  is  that, — 

"What  we  all  love  is  good  touched  up  with  evil: 
Religion's  self  must  have  a  spice  of  devil." 

Or  again: — 

"Life  little  loves;  'tis  true,  this  peevish  piety; 
E'en  they  with  whom  it  thinks  to  be  securest — 
Your  most  religious,  delicatest,  purest — 
Discern  and  show,  as  pious  people  can, 
Their  feeling  that  you  are  not  quite  a  man." 

The  same  argument  is  reasoned  on  a  differ- 
ent thesis,  after  Dipsychus  has  been  insulted 
by  a  Croat,  and  the  Spirit  is  urging  him  to 
seek  satisfaction.  Here,  as  before,  Dipsychus 
wants  to  adhere  to  the  pure  precepts  of  the 
Gospel.  The  Spirit  shows  how  unfit  they  are 
for  actual  life,  and  sums  up  with  a  crushing 
satire  on  his  comrade's  peaceful  mood. 

In  the  next  scene  we  are  on  our  way  to  the 
Lido,  and  the  question,  "Is  there  no  God?"  is 
being  reasoned  by  the  two  spirits — Dipsychus 
taking  the  mournful  and  regretful  side,  ex- 

117 


pressing  the  sadness  of  a  soul  that  longs  to 
believe  in  a  God  and  hears  it  knelled  that  there 
is  none,  while  the  Spirit  makes  the  best  of 
things,  and  shows  that  we  can  get  on  very  well 
without  one.  The  little  song,  "There  is  no 
God,  the  wicked  saith,"  occurs  in  this  scene. 
In  the  second  Act — if  we  may  use  this  word 
to  express  the  group  of  unconnected  scenes 
which  follow — we  are  brought  to  consider  the 
great  problem  of  the  choice  of  work.  Here  Ave 
may  admire  that  subtlety  of  modern  thought, 
which  seeks  no  longer  with  the  ancient  ])hiloso- 
phers  a  Criterion  of  Happiness  or  Knowledge, 
or  with  the  theologians  a  Criterion  of  Faith, 
but  which,  having,  as  it  were,  abandoned  hap- 
piness, knowledge,  and  faith,  as  hopeless  and 
irresoluble  questions,  to  their  fate,  is  no  less 
puzzled  to  discover  the  Criterion  of  Life  itself 
— of  Action — of  a  man's  place  in  the  world  of 
men.  This  part  opens  with  a  further  discus- 
sion of  the  thoughts  suggested  by  "Easter 
Day,"  in  which  the  Spirit  takes  occasion  to 
develop  his  rehgious  opinions,  and  thus  im- 
presses   their    practical   result    upon    Dipsy- 

chus : — 

118 


"Take  larger  views  (and  quit  your  Germans) 
From  the  Analogy  and  Sermons; 
I  fancied,  you  must  doubtless  know, — 
Butler  had  proved,  an  age  ago, 
That  in  religious,  as  profane  things, 
'Twas  useless  trying  to  explain  things; 
Men's  business-wits,  the  only  sane  things, 
These  and  compliance  are  the  main  things. 
God,  Revelation,  and  the  rest  of  it. 
Bad  at  the  best,  we  make  the  best  of  it.  • 

Like  a  good  subject  and  wise  man. 
Believe  whatever  things  you  can. 
Take  your  religion  as  'twas  found  you, 
And  say  no  more  of  it,  confound  you!" 

Then,  while  afloat  in  his  gondola,  Dipsychus 
begins  to  wish  that  all  life  were  after  this 
wise : — 

"How  light  we  move,  how  softly!     Ah, 
Were  life  but  as  the  gondola! 
So  live,  nor  need  to  call  to  mind 
Our  slaving  brother  here  behind!" 

The  contemplative  indisposition  for  action 
in  Dipsychus  is  mocked  and  baffled  by  the  per- 
plexing and  tormenting  riddles  which  the  in- 
equalities of  the  v/orld  offer  to  his  mind.  Life 
might  be  beautiful,  and  enjoyable,  and  easy, 
he  thinks,  were  it  not  for  a  craving  within  us 
after  the  unseen,  and  could  we  divest  ourselves 


119 


of  all  sympathy  for  our  toiling,  suffering  fel- 
low-creatures. In  this  mood,  riches  and  lux- 
urious pleasures  seem  to  him  "mere  insolence 
and  wantonness."  But  the  Spirit,  as  may  be 
imagined,  shares  none  of  these  difficulties.  He 
sings  "How  pleasant  it  is  to  have  money, 
heigho!"  and  sums  up  his  Welt-philosophie 
in  two  common-place  stanzas: — 

"The  world  is  very  odd,  we  see, 
We  do  not  comprehend  it; 
But  in  one  fact  we  all  agree, 
God  won't,  and  we  can't  mend  it. 

"Being  common  sense,  it  can't  be  sin 
To  take  it  as  I  find  it; 
The  pleasure  to  take  pleasure  in; 
The  pain,  try  not  to  mind  it." 

To  these  verses  Dipsychus  replies  with  the 
exquisite  lines,  "O  let  me  love  my  love  unto 
myself,  alone,"  which  have  been  printed  in  the 
volume  of  Clough's  published  poems. 

In  the  next  scene  Dipsychus  resolves  to 
commune  more  seriously  with  the  Spirit,  and 
to  question  him.  The  design  is  scarcely  formed 
before  the  Spirit  is  at  his  elbow,  and  Dipsy- 
chus, after  some  hesitation,  asks: — 

120 


"Should  I  form,  a  thing  to  be  supposed, 
A  wish  to  bargain  for  your  merchandise, 
Say  what  were  your  demands? — what  were  your  terms? — 
What  should  I  do?     What  should  I  cease  to  do? 
What  incense  on  what  altars  must  I  bum? 
And  what  abandon?     What  unlearn  or  learn? 
Religion  goes,  I  take  it." 

By  no  means,  replies  the  Spirit.  We  have  here 
no  blood-signed  contract,  no  tragic  price  of 
soul's  damnation  for  the  pomps  and  pleasures 
of  the  flesh.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  follow  the 
world's  ways  —  take  orders,  if  you  like,  but 
keep  within  the  serviceable  limits  of  routine 
religion,  and  do  not  indulge  in  vague  emo- 
tions. If  that  does  not  suit  you,  choose  the 
law.    Marry,  too,  by  all  means;  and — 

"Trust  one  who  knows  you, 
You'll  make  an  admirable  Sposo." 

This  is  the  result  of  the  incarnation.  Dipsy- 
chus,  with  his  high-flown  aspirations  and  shy 
sensitiveness,  is  cast  upon  a  sea  of  doubt.  He 
seeks  action,  and  has  to  choose  between  two 
common-place  professions.  The  Spirit  of  the 
world  tempts  him  with  no  magnificent  pleas- 
ures, with  no  promises  of  power.    Sneering  at 

111  -I 


him,  he  offers  in  exchange  for  his  soul's  vir- 
ginity the  merest  humdrum  of  diurnal  life  in 
a  marriage  without  illusions  and  a  business 
without    enthusiasms.     Dipsychus    is    fairly 

staggered : — 

"I  had  hoped 
Midst  weakness,  indolence,  frivolity, 
Irresolution,  still  had  hoped;  and  this 
Seems  sacrificing  hope." 

Would  it  not  be  better,  he  asks,  to  wait — to 
let  inferior  opportunities  slip  by,  and  to  seize 
the  supreme  chance  of  heroic  action  when  it 
comes?  But  what  if,  when  it  comes,  we  should 
prove  incapable  of  seizing  it  or  using  it  by 
want  of  action?  Is  it  not  safer  to  engage  in 
the  great  battle  as  a  common  soldier,  and  work 
up  to  the  captaincy? — 

"High  deeds 
Haunt  not  the  fringy  edges  of  the  fight, 
But  the  pell-mell  of  men." 

Yet  again  there  is  danger  in  this  course.  We 
may  reasonably  fear — 

"In  the  deft  trick 
Of  prentice  handling  to  forget  great  art. 
To  base  mechanical  adroitness  yield 
The  Inspiration  and  the  Hope  a  Slave!" 


Ah,  but  suppose  I  relinquish  action  alto- 
gether?   Even  that  is  unsafe : — 

"Contamination  taints  the  idler  first." 

I  will  away  with  hesitation,  at  last  he  cries, 
and  obey  my  instinct — if  only,  alas!  I  had  an 

instinct ! — 

"No,  no: 
The  life  of  instinct  has,  it  seems,  gone  by, 
And  will  not  be  forced  back.    And  to  live  now, 
I  must  sluice  out  myself  into  canals, 
And  lose  all  force  in  ducts.    The  modem  Hotspur 
Shrills  not  his  trumpet  of  'To  Horse,  To  Horse!' 
But  consults  columns  in  a  Railway  Guide." 

But  even  thus  to  act,  humbly  and  by  routine, 
might  be  sufficient  for  the  yearnings  of  the 
soul,  if  only  we  could  believe  that  the  work 
done  were  worth  doing,  and  that  we  were  inte- 
gral and  indispensable  parts  of  the  life  of  the 

great  world: — 

"If  indeed  it  work, 
And  is  not  a  mere  treadmill!  which  it  may  be, 
Who  can  confirm  it  is  not?  We  ask  action. 
And  dream  of  arms  and  conflict;  and  string  up 
All  self-devotion's  muscles;  and  are  set 
To  fold  up  papers.    To  what  end? — ^we  know  not. 
Other  folks  do  so;  it  is  always  done; 
And  it  perhaps  is  right." 


After  all,  if  really  bidden  to  bathe  in  this  com- 
mon-place Jordan  of  unapparent  efficacy,  let 
us  bathe.  "I  submit."  As  an  echo  to  this 
word  the  Spirit  is  heard  from  within  singing: — 

"Submit,  submit! 
'Tis  common  sense  and  human  wit 
Can  claim  no  higher  name  than  it." 

Still,  though  on  the  verge  of  action,  Dipsy- 
chus  wavers.  Is  he  now,  so  swiftly  and  irre- 
vocably, "to  lose  in  action,  passion,  talk,  the 
soul?"  To  abandon,  for  the  uncertain  good  of 
work  in  the  world,  those  moments  of  illumina- 
tion which  have  come  u})on  him  hitherto  at 
intervals,  and  seemed  to  solve  the  riddle? — 

"0  happy  hours! 

0  compensation  ample  for  long  days 

Of  what  impatient  tongues  call  wretchedness!" 
"No,  no! 

1  am  contented,  and  will  not  complain. 
To  the  old  paths,  my  soul!     O,  be  it  so! 
I  bear  the  work-day  burden  of  dull  life 
Above  these  footsore  flags  of  a  weary  world. 
Heaven  knows  how  long  it  has  not  been;  at  once, 
Lo!  I  am  in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day 

With  John  in  Patmos.     Is  it  not  enough, 
One  day  in  seven?  and  if  this  should  go, 

124 


If  this  pure  solace  should  desert  my  mind, 
What  were  all  else?     I  dare  not  risk  this  loss. 
To  the  old  paths,  my  soul!" 

Overhearing    this    soliloquy,    the    Spirit 

gibes : — 

"Oh,  yes. 
To  moon  about  religion;  to  inhume 
Your  ripened  age  in  solitary  walks, 
For  self -discussion;  to  debate  in  letters 
Vext  points  with  earnest  friends;  past  other  men 
To  cherish  natural  instincts,  yet  to  fear  them 
And  less  than  any  use  them     .... 

to  pervert 

Ancient  real  facts  to  modem  unreal  dreams, 
And  build  up  baseless  fabrics  of  romance 
And  heroism  upon  heroic  sand; 
To  bum  forsooth,  for  action,  yet  despise 
Its  merest  accidence  and  alphabet." 
*  «  *  *  * 

"Once  in  a  fortnight  say,  by  lucky  chance, 
Of  happier-tempered  coffee,  gain  (great  Heaven!) 
A  pious  rapture." 

We  regret  that  our  space  admits  of  only 
these  broken  extracts  from  a  speech  which  is 
full  of  the  most  searching  satire  on  a  scholar's 
solitary  life — of  irony  terrible  in  its  remorse- 
less truth — of  worldly  wisdom  crushing  down 
in  proud  superiority  of  strength  the  dreamy 

125 


aspirations  of  a  timid  soul.  Dipsychus,  stung 
and  quickened  by  a  sense  of  his  own  impotence 
and  by  the  ruthless  logic  of  the  carping  voice, 
cries  with  a  return  of  discontented  determina- 
tion : — 

"Must  it  be,  then?     So  quick  upon  my  thought 
To  follow  the  fulfilment  and  the  deed? 
I  counted  not  on  this.     I  counted  ever 
To  hold  and  turn  it  over  in  my  hands 
Much  longer." 

Yet  he  cannot  now  escape  the  law  which  his 
own  speculations  have  imposed  on  him.  It  is 
in  vain  that  the  thirst  for  action  leaves  him  for 
a  moment,  and  he  cries : — 

"What  need  for  action  yet?     I  am  happy  now; 
I  feel  no  lack.     What  cause  is  there  for  haste? 
Am  I  not  happy?     Is  not  that  enough?" 

bidding  the  Spirit  depart.  The  Spirit  will  not 
go,  but  turns  upon  him  with  a  new  menace: — 

"What!  you  know  not  that  I  too  can  be  serious, 
Can  speak  big  words,  and  use  the  tone  imperious, 
Can  speak,  not  honiedly,  of  love  and  beauty, 
But  sternly  of  a  something  much  like  Duty." 

The  casuistry  of  action  becomes  very  serious 
when  the  voice  of  the  world  imposes  upon  the 

126 


soul  one  of  its  own  laws,  and  goads  it  on  by 
an  appeal  to  its  own  higher  impulses.  Dipsy- 
chus  is  daunted  and  shaken : — 

"It  must  be,  then.    I  feel  it  in  my  soul; 
The  iron  enters,  sundering  flesh  and  bone, 
And  sharper  than  the  two-edged  sword  of  God. 
I  come  into  deep  waters.     Help,  oh  help! 
The  floods  run  over  me. 

Therefore,  farewell! — a  long  and  last  farewell, 
Ye  pious  sweet  simplicities  of  life, 
Good  books,  good  friends,  and  holy  moods,  and  all 
That  lent  rough  life  sweet  Sunday-seeming  rests. 
Making  earth  heaven-like.     Welcome,  wicked  world! 
The  hardening  heart,  the  calculating  brain. 
Narrowing  its  doors  to  thought,  the  lying  lips. 
The  calm-dissembling  eyes,  the  greedy  flesh, 
The  world,  the  devil, — welcome,  welcome,  welcome!" 

In  the  midst  of  this  mental  anguish  and 
moral  conflict,  the  Spirit  of  the  world  sneers 
at  him.  What  are  you  dreading  to  give  up? 
What  is  the  work  you  have  set  yourself?  Is 
it  literature — novels,  reviews,  poems,  perhaps 
a  little  philosophising  —  vague  scepticism, 
dilettante  dreamings  about  life?  Or  else  you'll 
try  teaching  and  tutoring  of  youth,  not  so  as  to 
absorb  your  whole  time,  but  always  keeping 
leisure  for  your  meditations  and  illuminations: 

127 


"Heartily  you  will  not  take  to  anything; 
Whatever  happen,  don't  I  see  you  still 
Living  no  life  at  all?     Even  as  now 
An  o'ergrown  baby,  sucking  at  the  dugs 
Of  instinct,  dry  long  since.     Come,  come!  you  are  old 

enough 
For  spoon-meat,  surely. 

Will  you  go  on  thus 
Until  death  end  you?     If  indeed  it  does: 
For  what  it  does,  none  knows.     Yet  as  for  you, 
You'll  hardly  have  the  courage  to  die  outright; 
You'll  somehow  halve  even  it.    Methinks  I  see  you, 
Through  everlasting  limboes  of  void  time, 
Twirling  and  twiddling  ineffectively, 
And  indeterminately  swaying  for  ever." 

In  this  way,  with  continual  sarcasms  and 
much  home  truth,  seasoned  with  a  reiteration 
of  the  philosophy  of  submission,  the  Spirit 
drives  Dipsychus  on  to  engage  in  the  world's 
work.  Having  bowed  and  given  up  the  con- 
test, Dipsychus  still  abjures  his  counsellor: — 

"Not  for  thy  service,  thou  imperious  fiend. 
Not  to  do  thy  work  or  the  like  of  thine; 
Not  to  please  thee,  O  base  and  fallen  spirit! 
But  one  Most  High,  Most  True,  whom,  without  Thee, 
It  seems  I  cannot." 

He  still  sets  the  law  of  life  and  the  law  of  the 
Gospel  at  variance: 

128 


"Do  we  owe  fathers  nothing — mothers  nought? 
Is  filial  duty  folly?    Yet  He  says, 
'He  that  loves  father,  mother,  more  than  Me;* 
Yea,  and  'the  man  his  parents  shall  desert,* 
The  ordinance  says,  'and  cleave  unto  his  wife.' 
0  man,  behold  thy  wife!'  the  hard,  naked  world; 
Adam,  accept  thy  Eve!" 

With  many  protestations,  and  reservations, 

and    antinomian    arguments,    Dipsychus    at 

length  accepts  the  yoke  of  the  prince  of  this 

world,  not  without  having  his  eyes  open  to 

what  he  is  about,  but  seeing  no  other  course. 

And  the  Spirit  says: — 

"0,  goodness!  won't  you  find  it  pleasant 
To  own  the  positive  and  present; 
To  see  yourself  like  people  round, 
And  feel  your  feet  upon  the  ground!" 

After  this  long  analysis  of  Dipsychus,  we 
have  only  to  call  attention  to  the  skill  with 
which  Clough  has  sustained  his  two  characters. 
In  the  course  of  their  protracted  dialogue, 
they  never  change,  except  in  so  far  as  an  al- 
teration of  will  and  purpose  is  wrought  in  the 
weaker  spirit  by  the  stronger  and  more  persis- 
tent tempter.  The  force  of  unscrupulous  and 
narrow  power,  firmly  planted  upon  the  solid 

129 


facts  of  common  life,  is  dis])layed  with  won- 
derful vigor  by  the  poet,  in  his  Mephistopheles, 
who,  at  the  same  time,  has  never  failed  to  make 
the  most  of  the  humours  and  satirical  side  of 
his  character.  There  is  nothing  tragic  in  this 
Mephistopheles,  just  as  there  is  nothing  tragic 
(melodramatically  speaking)  in  the  final  con- 
cession of  Dipsychus.  But  beneath  the  ironi- 
cal sneers  of  the  one,  and  the  helpless  struggles 
of  the  other,  lurks  the  deep  and  subtle  tragedy 
of  human  life  and  action — of  free  souls  caged, 
and  lofty  aspirations  curbed — a  vulgar  and 
diurnal  tragedy  over  which  no  tears  are  shed 
in  theatres,  but  which,  we  might  imagine,  stirs 
the  sorrow  of  the  angels  day  by  day  as  they 
look  down  upon  our  world. 

This  same  most  piteous  chord  is  touched 
even  more  deeply  and  with  a  keener  sense  of 
hopelessness  in  the  poem  called  "The  Ques- 
tioning Spirit" — one  of  the  most  perfect 
among  Clough's  earlier  compositions,  written, 
perhaps,  at  the  darkest  and  most  troubled 
period  of  his  life,  on  the  theme  of  what  may  be 
described  as  the  Criterion  of  Duty.     As  an- 

180 


other  appendix  or  gloss  upon  the  philosophy  of 
Dipsychus,  we  may  mention  the  lines  begin- 
ning, "Duty — that's  to  say  complying,"  the 
concentrated  verjuice  of  the  satire  of  which  is 
very  characteristic  of  one  of  Clough's  moods. 
An  answer  or  antidote  to  these  more  gloomy 
views  of  common  life  is  found  in  the  elegiac 
lines  beginning,  "Hope  evermore  and  believe, 
O  man!"  which  contain  this  cheerful  stoicism: 

'*Not  for  the  gain  of  the  gold;  for  the  getting,  the  hoard- 
ing, the  having; 
But  for  the  joy  of  the  deed;  but  for  the  Duty  to  do." 

It  remains  to  consider  Clough's  artistic 
qualities  more  in  detail  than  we  have  hitherto 
done.  But  neither  is  it  easy  to  do  this,  nor 
have  we  left  ourselves  much  space  for  doing  it 
in.  In  the  course  of  our  notice,  however,  we 
have  been  at  pains  to  select  passages  for  quota- 
tion which  might  illustrate  his  style,  as  well  as 
supply  the  matter  necessary  for  explaining  his 
subject.  There  is  a  certain  dryness,  hardness, 
and  severity — a  want  of  colour,  tone,  and  rich- 
ness— in  most  of  what  Clough  has  written.  In 
daily  life  he  was  a  man  of  few  words,  and  diffi- 

ISl 


cult  utterance;  nor  does  he  seem  ever  to  have 
gained  real  facility  of  poetical  expression.  His 
last  poems,  the  "Mari  Magno  Tales,"  have  in- 
deed more  fluency;  but  here  the  copia  verh- 
orum  tends  to  a  somewhat  prosaic  prolixity, 
instead  of  adding  warmth  and  splendour  to  his 
style.  Those  readers  who  have  accustomed 
their  ears  to  the  sublime  harmonies  of  Milton, 
or  to  the  exquisite  lyrical  music  of  Shelley,  or 
to  the  more  artijScially  melodious  rhythms  of 
Mr.  Swinburne,  or  to  Tennyson's  elegant  and 
complex  cadences,  will  complain  that  Clough 
is  harsh  and  unadorned.  He  rough-hews  in- 
deed (as  it  has  been  said)  like  a  Cyclops;  but 
he  cannot  finish  like  a  Canova.  Occasionally 
he  attains  to  perfect  style  and  form  per  saltum, 
by  a  sudden  flash  of  native  energy  and  fire. 
He  pours  forth  torrid  thought  and  feeling  like 
a  lava  yet  into  the  adamantine  mould  of  stately 
and  severe  expression.  "Easter  Day"  is  a  speci- 
men of  this  success.  The  poem  owes  nothing 
to  its  rhythm,  or  its  rhymes,  or  the  beauty  of 
its  imagery,  or  the  music  of  its  language.  It 
is  plain  and  natural,  and  without  allurements 

182 


\ 


of  any  sort.  But  the  emotion  is  so  intense, 
and  so  thoroughly  expressed — the  thought  is 
so  vigorous  and  vital  in  every  line — that  the 
grandest  poetry  is  wrought  out  of  the  com- 
monest materials,  apparently  without  effort, 
and  by  the  mere  intensity  of  the  poet's  will. 
"Easter  Day"  is  a  bronze  poem.  It  is  the  most 
perfect  illustration  in  English  literature  of  the 
artistic  canons  which  Wordsworth  preached, 
and  upon  which  his  own  practice  brought  con- 
tempt. "Qui  laborat  orat"  and  many  more  of 
the  minor  religious  poems  are  likewise  cast  of 
red-hot  feeling,  in  a  stern  and  simple  mould. 

But,  such  being  the  style  by  which  alone 
Clough  attains  to  excellence,  it  follows  that 
when  he  is  not  perfectly  simple  and  clear  he 
has  no  excuse:  when  he  is  prolix  he  becomes 
prosy.  There  is  no  gorgeousness  of  language, 
pomp  of  sound,  or  playfulness  of  fancy  to 
cover  the  faults  of  ill-constructed  or  feebly- 
designed  poems,  and  to  yield  ample  matter  for 
quotation  when  the  subject  fails  to  interest. 

Passing  to  matters  of  mere  detail,  we  may 
observe  that  Clough  apparently  rhymed  with 

13t 


some  difficulty,  and  that  he  was  too  fond  of 
a  jingling  refrain  carried  through  a  poem  of 
many  stanzas,  as  in  the  lyrics  of  "Dipsychus." 
It  was  only  when  he  felt  with  intensity,  and 
when  the  expression  of  his  feeling  welled  up 
spontaneously  within  his  heart  and  overflowed, 
that  his  poems  were  perfect;  and  then  we 
imagine  that  few  writers  had  the  power  of 
more  exactly  and  touchingly  saying  what  thej'^ 
wished. 

Connected,  apparently,  with  this  inade- 
quacy of  utterance  in  any  of  the  more  complex 
and  rhymed  forms  of  verse,  was  his  predilec- 
tion for  hexameters.  The  English  hexameter 
has  always  been  confessed  to  be  a  somewhat 
rough  and  jolting  metre,  when  compared  with 
heroic  or  blank  verse  or  the  Spenserian  stanza. 
Yet  it  served  Clough's  purpose.  In  those 
loose,  yet  rhythmical  lines  he  was  able  to  ex- 
press with  the  exact  fidelity  required  by  his 
artistic  conscience  all  essential  realities  of  fact, 
aU  delicate  shades  of  feeling — to  turn  from 
sentiment  to  satire,  from  the  incidents  of  travel 
to  ffisthetical  or  religious  meditations,   from 

1S4 


landscape  pictures  to  philosophy  or  argument 
or  analysis.  A  good  judge  of  poetry  has  lately 
pronounced  it  as  his  opinion  that  Clough  never 
intended  his  hexameters  for  metre,  but  for  ca- 
denced  prose.    But  it  is  impossible  that  Clough 
could  have  meant  these  hexameters  for  an  es- 
say in  prose,  since  they  are  utterly  unlike  any 
sort  or  kind  of  prose  writing,  and  are  extremely 
suggestive,    to    say    the    least,    of    Horace's 
epistles  and  of  Goethe.     No  artist  of  taste 
would  make  experiments  in  one  species  of  writ- 
ing by  importing  into  it  the  peculiar  rhythm 
of  another  species.    If  a  man  chooses  to  cast 
his  thought  into  the  world-old  form  of  the 
hexameter,  he  is  not  asking  us  to  compare  him 
with  the  "Religio  Medici,"  the  "Areopagitica," 
the  "Opium  Eater,"  and  "Modern  Painters," 
but  with  the  "Iliad,"  the  "De  Rerum  Natura," 
"Hermann  and  Dorothea,"  and  "Evangeline." 
Judged  by  these  latter  standards,  Mr.  Clough 
takes  a  high  place  for  the  subtlety,  variety, 
and  racy  flavour  of  originality  which  he  has 
imparted  to  this  ancient  vehicle  of  thought. 
His  hexameters  are  sui  generis,  unlike  those  of 


any  other  writer  in  any  language,  and  better, 
we  venture  to  assert,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Arnold, 
than  those  of  any  other  English  author.    If  he 
sets    prosody    at    defiance,    and    makes    such 
dactyls   as   "pace   slowly,"   he   yet   produces 
periods  of  majestic  and  sonorous  music  like 
those  which  might  be  quoted  from  the  earlier 
parts  of  "Amours  de  Voyage."    But,  leaving 
these  questions  of  style  and  form,  we  may  pass 
to  other  poetical  qualities  of  Mr.  Clough.    In 
his  painting  from  nature,  and  in  his  descrip- 
tions of  character,  we  trace  the  marvellous  sin- 
cerity and  accuracy  of  his  mind.  The  "Bothie" 
is  full  of  the  most  delightful  pictures  of  high- 
land scenery,  the  fidelity  of  which  can  only  be 
tested  by  a  minute  comparison  of  Clough's 
words  with  the  actual  places  they  refer  to. 
"Amours  de  Voyage,"  in  the  same  way,  yields 
many   most  highly   finished   and   exquisitely 
faithful     pictures     of     Rome.       Everything 
Clough  wrote  he  drew  from  personal  experi- 
ence as  far  as  the  locality  and  mise  en  scene 
are  concerned.    And  this  accounts  for  the  strict 
truthfulness  to  nature  which  we  find  in  his  chief 

poems. 

186 


As  for  his  power  of  analysing  and  sustain- 
ing character,  for  his  irony  and  humour,  and 
pathos,  we  have  abeady  said  and  quoted 
enough  to  show  that  he  possesses  these  higher 
faculties  of  genius  in  no  small  degree.  What 
is  particularly  important  in  the  present  age  of 
literature,  he  is  powerful  without  being  osten- 
tatious, passionate  and  intense  without  ex- 
travagance, profound  without  obscurity,  per- 
fectly simple  in  form  and  solid  in  matter.  He 
is  a  poet  who  will  bear  being  frequently  read ; 
and  who,  each  time  we  read  him,  astonishes  us 
with  some  fresh  beauty,  or  some  new  reach  of 
thought. 


lefj 


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